Binance Labs, a $10 billion venture capital arm, has quietly separated from Binance but retains a licensing agreement to use the Binance brand.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, appears to have spun off its venture capital and incubation arm Binance Labs, as evidenced by the latter’s website.

The move, which took place earlier this year, marks an important development during CEO Richard Teng's four months on the job.

Binance Labs distances itself from Binance

Binance Labs’ website now makes it clear that it operates independently and is not affiliated with Binance Group or involved in any of the latter’s activities, including cryptocurrency exchanges.

According to records from the Internet Archive, the change appears to have occurred between February 19 and February 24.

Binance Labs employee contracts are now different from those at cryptocurrency exchanges, similar to the structure of the Binance-backed BNB Chain project. Despite these adjustments, operational changes are expected to be minimal.

While the reasons behind this reorganization have not been disclosed, Binance Labs’ investment director Alex Odagiu stressed that the entity has severed ties with the broader Binance group. However, it will retain the licensing agreement to use the Binance brand.

Despite these organizational changes, Binance Labs remains active in its operations. Last month, the platform invested in Babylon, a Bitcoin staking protocol that pioneered native BTC staking on PoS blockchains. It enables users to stake BTC and earn yields without relying on third-party escrow, bridging solutions or wrapper services.

In addition, Binance Labs has incubated three projects: Ethena Labs, which focuses on Ethereum derivatives; NNFrompt, which provides an AI-driven user-generated content (UGC) platform for Web3 creators; and optimizes trader extractability through intent-driven processes. Shogu.fi protocol of value (TEV).

Binance’s legal troubles continue

Binance has faced intense scrutiny since November after agreeing to pay more than $4 billion in fines to U.S. regulators, one of the largest settlements in U.S. corporate history.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Binance, Binance.US and its then-CEO CZ (Changpeng Zhao) remains unresolved, and the motion to dismiss the lawsuit is still in dispute.

The SEC is strengthening its case with supplementary authority in various lawsuits, including a class-action lawsuit against Binance, to deny dismissal of the lawsuit. However, the judge in charge of the case, Amy Berman Jackson, recently issued a ruling instructing the court not to engage in discussion or elaborate on additional strong evidence presented by the parties to the case during the trial. In this particular scenario, the judge's order means that the court will not conduct an in-depth discussion or analysis of the additional authoritative evidence presented by the parties. This may be because the judge believes that these additional evidence are not relevant to the core issues of the case, or believes that they are not relevant to the core issues of the case. The evidence was insufficient to affect the final decision of the case. Such a ruling may limit the parties' opportunity to further present or argue additional evidence in court.

Following the lawsuit, CZ resigned shortly after pleading guilty to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act. By then, Binance’s former global regional market head Richard Teng would take over as CEO in the same month. #BinanceLabs #风险投资