Binance-Backed YZi Labs Makes Strategic Investment in DeFi Protocol TermMax

YZi Labs, the venture and investment arm under global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has made a strategic investment in decentralized finance protocol TermMax.

Term Structure Labs, the developer of TermMax, announced Aug. 27 that it had secured the investment from YZi Labs. The companies did not disclose the investment size or valuation. YZi Labs said it invested because the options market built on tokenized stocks remains underdeveloped.

TermMax was previously selected for YZi Labs' accelerator program, EASY Residency Season 3. The latest investment lifts the project's total funding to more than $8 million. Existing investors include Cumberland DRW, which led its seed round in 2023, as well as HashKey Capital, Decima Fund, Longling Capital and MZ Web3 Fund.

TermMax is a blockchain-based protocol that offers lending products with set maturities and fixed interest rates. It aims to bring a bond-like fixed-rate structure from traditional finance into the largely floating-rate DeFi market.

Since launching its mainnet in April 2025, the protocol has expanded to 10 Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks, where it operates more than 60 fixed-rate markets and more than 40 vaults. According to the company, total value locked is in the tens of millions of dollars and registered wallets have topped 1.5 million. Its native token, TMX, completed its token generation event on Aug. 25.

Earlier this year, TermMax launched a fixed-rate lending market that lets users post tokenized US stocks as collateral. It later expanded that offering by adding bStocks, Binance's tokenized stock product.

The protocol offers options on tokenized stocks through TermMax Alpha. The product fixes the conversion price when a contract is signed and settles through physical delivery of the underlying asset at maturity. Because positions are not liquidated before maturity, the structure reduces the risk of forced liquidation from temporary price swings in illiquid markets, the company said.

TermMax is also expanding its institutional business. Its institutional platform, TermPrime, completed its first transaction on Canton Network in June and has since increased the number of institutional counterparties to nine.

Jerry Li, co-founder and chief executive officer of TermMax, said the company's goal is to help develop DeFi into a market professional enough to support real-world finance.