Binance Labs, the $10 billion venture capital and incubation arm of crypto exchange Binance, has invested an undisclosed amount in Renzo, an Ethereum liquid recovery protocol based on EigenLayer.
Binance Labs’ investment in Renzo comes shortly after the startup increased $3.2 million in a seed funding round at a valuation of $25 million last month. Lucas Kozinski, founder of Renzo, told The Block that Binance Labs’ investment is the same structure as the seed round, i.e. shares with a token warrant in a ratio of 1:1.
Renzo is Binance Labs’ second recent investment in regaining space in Ethereum. The firm invested in Puffer Finance last month, which has quickly become the second largest fluid withdrawal protocol since the month before launch on February 1. Puffer has more than $1 billion locked on its platform, while Renzo follows the fourth largest protocol with more than $375 million on its protocol. according to DeFiLlama.
Ethereum liquidation reprisals are one of the hottest areas in crypto right now billions of dollars vertical casting. The trend started with the launch of EigenLayer, which introduced a withdrawal system in Ethereum last June. EigenLayer currently has a total value of $7.8 billion, DeFiLlama shows. EigenLayer-based protocols, including Renzo and Puffer, have collectively amassed more than $3.5 billion in assets.
Cash withdrawal protocols “play a critical role in unlocking liquidity and maximizing capital efficiency, while also abstracting technical complexity for users,” Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, told a news conference statement to The Block.
Native ETH re-recording on BNB Chain
With fresh capital from Binance Labs, Renzo plans to launch native ETH recovery on BNB Chain through its recent partnership with cross-chain protocol Connext, Kozinski said. That means BNB Chain users can instantly redeem ETH for ezETH, Renzo’s liquid re-withdrawal token, without bridging, and get rewards in EigenLayer points and Renzo’s ezpoints. Points are similar to regular loyalty points like airline miles and are designed to drive engagement without being immediately tradable or valuable.
Renzo also already accepts deposits of wBETH (Binance’s liquid staking token) for withdrawals, Kozinski said, adding that the protocol remains focused on building new withdrawal integrations for BNB Chain users.
In addition to wBETH, Renzo also accepts Lido’s liquid staking token sETH in addition to native ETH for re-withdrawal, Kozinski noted.
Renzo is currently live in a mainnet beta. The general mainnet launch is expected after the Stage 3 launch of EigenLayer. Renzo’s other investors include Maven11, Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, IOSG Ventures and OKX Ventures.
