The family office of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and security services firm CertiK have formed a collaboration to improve the security infrastructure of startups participating in the EASY Residency Incubation Program.
According to a press statement shared with Cryptopolitan on Tuesday, CertiK agreed to issue a $1 million auditing grant for early-stage founders, in addition to AI-driven scanning and Skynet Boosting services.
The EASY Residency began as a global 10-week incubation first announced by YZi Labs in May 2025. The investment firm said the initiative would help startups in Web3, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology create long-term value.
Participating founders in the program received mentorship from crypto KOLs and established developers, access to a global network of investors, and immersive in-person residency to accelerate development and marketing of their products.
Some of the leaders mentioned in the mentorship program included Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon, Eric Chen of Injective, Ronghui Gu of CertiK, Veronica Wong of SafePal, and Harry Halpin of Nym.
CertiK issues a $1 million grant for security audits
As revealed in YZi Labs’ press release, CertiK’s $1 million security grant will provide EASY Residency participants with formal verification. It has code reviews, and AI-powered vulnerability scanning to detect threats like reentrancy attacks and logic errors in smart contracts.
YZi Labs will see through the collaboration between CertiK and its incubated projects by helping founders understand and implement the security tools effectively.
“Security is the foundation of long-term success, but for early-stage founders, it’s often a high-stakes distraction while they are still chasing product-market fit,” head of YZi Labs Ella Zhang said in the presser. “Think of it like building a skyscraper: Founders should focus on the architecture and the vision, while CertiK are the structural engineers that make sure the frame is earthquake-proof.”
Professor Ronghui Gu, Co-Founder and CEO of CertiK, added that the partnership with YZi Labs will significantly improve the security level of projects and provide the “necessary guarantees” for their long-term development. “This is not only related to the growth of projects but also to the health and sustainability of the entire Web3 ecosystem,” he concluded.
During the program’s debut last May, Zhang confirmed EASY Residency is an “evolution” of the Binance Labs Incubation initiative that began seven years ago. YZi’s Managing Partner reiterated that it was a focused environment for the top 1% of founders to build, ship, and expand their market reach.
“EASY Residency creates a multi-generational support network where founders benefit from insights drawn from experience in funding, governance, and scaling. We’ve now added access to specialized security resources provided by CertiK, and since The YZi Labs team handles everything else, founders can focus on what matters most,” Zhang surmised.
YZi Labs is reviewing recent governance decisions made by Nasdaq-listed CEA Industries, which now trades as BNC. As reported by Cryptopolitan, the company implemented a stockholder rights plan and tightened written-consent rules last week, against the backdrop of pressures from YZi to make changes to the board.
According to the publicly-traded firm’s financial filings, BNC secured a $500 million private placement with an option to raise up to $1.25 billion if all warrants are exercised. Its stock price has been trading in the red for over a month now, closing near $6.41 on January 6.
The price is a 92% decline from its 52-week high of $82.88, and a 3% downturn from its $7.52 30-day peak. Binance’s native token BNB, in contrast, is trading just 33% away from its $1,370 all-time-high level at the time of this reporting.
YZi Labs coined BNC’s share issuance choice as “stockholder-unfriendly actions” and claimed that the board chose protection over accountability. The firm also rejected BNC’s statement propounding it “has never considered an alternative token for the Company’s digital asset treasury, nor launched competitive DAT ventures.”
YZi cited a November statement from BNC CEO David Namdar who said the company had indeed contemplated switching to other crypto assets like Solana.
