Written by: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily
In early 2024, Binance began to list coins frequently through the Launchpool section, among which Binance Labs investment projects became the main force in listing coins, including Fusionist (ACE), Sleepless AI (AI), NFPrompt (NFP), etc. In the middle of the year, Binance suspended the listing of the currency due to market downturns and market controversies over the "blood-sucking" of VC coins. Recently, Launchpool has returned again, and the frequency of currency listings has increased significantly.
Yesterday, Binance Labs “selected” 12 projects in its portfolio to be showcased on the Innovation Stage at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai to help them gain exposure and feedback.
Interestingly, the most liked and exposed reply under the Binance Labs tweet was 'I'm tired; can KiloEx hurry up with the token' (one of the 12 invested projects). Therefore, based on the relatively high probability of listing, renewed support from Binance Labs, and strong calls for token issuance, Odaily will summarize the project background and latest progress of these 12 projects for readers to reference and judge if there are still opportunities for interaction.
The 12 projects are aPriori, KiloEx, MilkyWay, Movement, OpenEden, Puffer Finance, Solayer, StakeStone, UXUY, ZEROBASE, Zest Protocol, Zircuit.
aPriori
Project Business: aPriori is a liquidity staking platform in the Monad ecosystem, aiming to provide users with efficient staking solutions while maintaining asset liquidity.
Financing Situation: On July 30, received strategic investment from Binance Labs; on July 25, completed $8 million seed round financing, led by Pantera Capital; on January 30, completed $2.7 million Pre-Seed round financing, led by Hashed and Arrington Capital.
Latest Progress: Currently no direct progress due to the unavailability of the Monad network.
KiloEx
Project Business: GMX-like perpetual contract DEX, with a variety of mainstream assets due to counterparty reasons.
Financing Situation: On March 21, received investment from Foresight Ventures; on August 4, 2023, received investment from Binance Labs. The amounts were not disclosed.
Latest Progress: KiloEx was initially deployed on the BNB chain and opBNB chain, and subsequently shifted its business focus towards multi-chain expansion. In reverse chronological order, it has gone live on networks such as Base, B², Taiko, Manta, etc., and has also integrated with dappOS's intent network (a two-for-one opportunity).
MilkyWay
Project Business: MilkyWay is a liquidity staking solution within the Celestia ecosystem, initially deployed and operated on Osmosis, currently expanding asset use cases and types.
Financing Situation: On April 30, completed $5 million seed round financing, with investments from Binance Labs, Polychain, Hack VC, etc.
Latest Progress: Major development directions include expanding the core asset milkTIA use case, bringing this asset into protocols like Demex and Flame; launching new liquidity staking assets, such as milkINIT (INIT is the token of the modular network Initia, which raised $22.5 million and will have its TGE next month).
Movement
Project Business: A modular network based on the Move language, aiming to connect EVM networks with Move networks.
Financing Situation: On May 1, received investment from Binance Labs; on April 25, completed Series A financing, led by Polychain; on September 13, 2023, completed $3.4 million Pre-Seed round financing, led by dao 5, Borderless Capital, Blizzard Fund, Varys Capital.
Latest Progress: Movement testnet Odyssey is ongoing; according to official disclosure, there are currently 10 million addresses with over 458 million transactions.
OpenEden
Project Business: RWA tokenization protocol, currently can be considered as a US Treasury on-chain protocol, allowing users to invest in US Treasury securities through its native stablecoin TBILL.
Financing Situation: Received strategic investment from Binance Labs on September 12.
Latest Progress: In June this year, Moody's Ratings granted a licensed fund for tokenized US Treasury bonds an 'A' rating, making it the first RWA token to receive a Moody's rating. Cumulative TVL reached $150 million (using its products requires KYC compliance, not a rug pull project).
Puffer Finance
Project Business: One of the re-staking protocols based on Eigenlayer. Its special feature compared to other re-staking protocols is the launch of the Based Rollup solution UniFi, aiming to solve the liquidity fragmentation issue on Ethereum and bring value back to Ethereum L1.
Financing Situation: Conducted four rounds of financing, completed $18 million Series A financing on April 16, led by Electric Capital and Brevan Howard Digital; received strategic investment from Binance Labs on January 30.
Latest Progress: On October 22, UniFi Devnet went live, open to whitelisted users and protocols, and the testnet and mainnet will soon be launched. Last week, the protocol token PUFFER airdrop claim was opened, along with the withdrawal function for pufETH.
Solayer
Project Business: Liquidity re-staking protocol on the Solana network.
Financing Situation: On August 27, completed $12 million seed round financing, led by Polychain, with investments from Binance Labs, etc.; completed pre-seed round financing in July, with investments from Anatoly (founder of Solana) and others.
Latest Progress: Launched liquidity re-staking SOL in collaboration with multiple exchanges, including Binance (BNSOL), Bybit (bbSOL), Bitget (BGSOL), etc., allowing users to stake their SOL tokens within the exchange and convert them into these tokens, receiving staking rewards, liquidity incentives, AVS delegation, and MEV rewards.
In collaboration with OpenEden to launch RWA yield-bearing USD sUSD, this token allows for re-staking and will earn interest through US Treasury bonds.
StakeStone
Project Business: LSD (liquid staking derivatives) protocol supported by ETH staking yields.
Financing Situation: On March 25, received investments from Binance Labs, OKX Ventures, and Skyland Ventures.
Latest Progress: The main development direction is multi-chain expansion; yesterday SBTC and STONEBTC were launched on the berachain bArtio testnet; announced integration plans with Sonic (new version of Fantom), etc.
UXUY
Project Business: Multi-chain DEX based on MPC wallets.
Financing Situation: On May 9, completed $8 million Pre-A round financing, with investments from Binance Labs, Bixin Ventures, etc.; in August 2023 received investment from MEXC Ventures; in April 2023 completed $3.2 million seed round financing, with investments from Waterdrip Capital, etc.
Latest Progress: According to co-founder 0xKevin - UXUY 'All in TG (Telegram)', launched the first self-hosted multi-chain wallet on TG, supporting any Bot to connect to any ecosystem without permission, including EVM/Solana/TRON/TON, etc.
ZEROBASE
Project Business: ZEROBASE is a real-time ZK prover network designed for speed, decentralization, and compliance, allowing ZK proofs to be generated within milliseconds and ensuring decentralization and rapid consensus through mechanisms, enabling large-scale commercial use.
Financing Situation: On October 19, completed $5 million financing, with investments from Binance Labs, etc.
Zest Protocol
Project Business: Zest Protocol is a native Bitcoin lending protocol on the Stacks network. The protocol itself is not particularly noteworthy; when it received investment from Binance Labs in May, it was one of the few investment projects by Binance Labs in the Bitcoin ecosystem in recent years. However, with Binance Labs investing in projects like Hemi Network and Lombard, their investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem is no longer rare.
Financing Situation: On May 13, completed $3.5 million seed round financing, led by Tim Draper, with investments from Binance Labs, etc.
Latest Progress: Launched the points system RoboZester, allowing users to earn points Oranges through various social media tasks, with no further details provided.
Zircuit
Project Business: Zircuit is an EVM-compatible ZK rollup, allowing users to earn multiple types of incentives in one stop, including staking yields, protocol tokens, points, and future airdrops, etc. Zircuit points out that new LRT protocols are constantly emerging, and even experienced users find it difficult to track and choose the safest and best protocols to deploy their funds. Zircuit aims to solve this problem, becoming the main liquidity hub for staking assets (ETH, BTC, LST, and LRT), with users' funds deployed by Zircuit into safe, high-quality protocols.
Financing Situation: On July 22, completed a round of financing with investments from Binance Labs, Mirana Ventures, etc.; received a separate investment from Binance Labs on June 11. The amounts and valuations were not disclosed.
Latest Progress: Launched Zircuit Liquidity Hub, stakers will receive airdrops from partners including ZeroLend, Elara, Avalon Labs, Circuit, Ocelex, and Gamma. Users staking on the Ethereum mainnet can migrate for free to the Liquidity Hub on Zircuit L2.
