CZ's Winter Crypto Bets Are His Best. That's Not an Accident

CZ thinks his darkest days produced his best deals. The Binance founder's family office YZi Labs spent the crypto winter buying while everyone else panic sold. Now he expects those investments to outperform everything else in the portfolio.

There are seven of them. Seven deals struck when the market was bleeding. And the man managing billions in personal wealth says those are the ones to watch.

Real talk: when someone with CZ's track record tells you the scariest time to buy was actually the best time, you should pay attention.

The Winter Shopping Spree

Here's how YZi Labs works. It's not a traditional VC fund with outside limited partners. It's the family office managing CZ's personal wealth. Every check they wrote during the downturn was his own money. His own risk. His own conviction.

And he went shopping.

Think about the timing. Late 2022 and 2023 were brutal. Bitcoin collapsed below $16,000 after the FTX disaster. Projects were laying off entire teams. Retail had logged off. Most funds were defending their marks, not making new bets.

CZ was doing the opposite. YZi Labs was quietly deploying capital into those seven projects when valuations were in the gutter.

CZ credits the timing itself for the expected performance. That's the key detail. He's not saying these are the best teams he's ever backed, although some probably are. He's saying the window mattered. Deals struck when sentiment sits at rock bottom tend to share one trait: they're priced for failure.

That's what creates asymmetry. That's where the alpha actually lives.

What This Actually Says

This is a signal about cycles more than anything else.

When the most recognizable builder in crypto says his winter buys will beat everything else, he's confirming something veterans already know. The best entries come with the most pain. The people who bought during the chaos didn't need luck. They needed a thesis and a stomach for red.

Who loses in this scenario? The people who waited. The ones who need the market to feel safe before they move. By the time sentiment flips and everything looks green, the cheap entry points are gone.

I've been saying this for weeks. The investors willing to look stupid when prices are falling are the ones who end up with the bags everyone else wishes they had.

But here's the thing. Not every winter deal is a winner. Some of those seven will probably fail. That's how venture capital works at every price point. The magic isn't in picking only winners. It's in owning enough of the right ones when the cycle turns.

The Takeaway

Watch what YZi Labs does next, not just what they already bought.

If CZ's thesis is right, and winter deals outperform summer deals, then the real question is whether we're still in a window where good projects are cheap. The market has recovered a lot since the depths of the bear. But that doesn't mean every good deal is done.

Ask yourself this. Are you buying when it's uncomfortable or waiting until it's obvious?

The chain doesn't lie. Neither do entry prices.

Buy when it's cold. That's the whole playbook. It's boring, it's uncomfortable, and it works.