Binance’s Canadian business went up in smoke in 2023, but the co-founder of the world’s largest crypto platform is selling a new addictive product in the province—with, of course, a blockchain twist.

From rips to riches: YZi Labs, Canadian billionaire Changpeng Zhao’s family office, announced in July that it was participating in a US$500-million investment in Nasdaq-listed CEA Industries. The previous month, Colorado-based CEA—whose business was previously focused on making agricultural equipment for marijuana growers and indoor farmers—closed an acquisition of Canadian vape retailer Fat Panda, which sells its products online and in 33 stores in Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.

Vapes and weed-growing equipment may seem like an odd fit for a US$10-billion fund that primarily invests in crypto, AI and biotech, but wares such as Fat Panda’s Level X Flavour Beast Unleashed and That ‘80s Juice – Rock Tarts weren’t the primary motivators for the deal. YZi Labs made the investment to turn CEA into a publicly traded investment vehicle for BNB, a crypto asset that facilitates transactions on blockchains built by Binance and that made up about 98 per cent of Zhao’s crypto portfolio as of February.

CEA and YZi Labs did not respond when asked if the company plans to continue operating the Canadian vape business.

CZ’s comeback: Zhao’s entry to capital markets through CEA is part of a broader effort to shed the stigma of a 2023 settlement that saw him step down as CEO of Binance and serve prison time after pleading guilty to failing to implement effective money-laundering controls. Zhao is also seeking a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump and is reportedly in talks with the Department of Justice about dropping a requirement that an independent monitor oversee Binance’s compliance with anti-money laundering rules and other laws, prompting speculation he could return to the company. Binance exited Canada in 2023 after a series of spats with securities regulators.

Treasury mania: The investment in CEA is an example of one of 2025’s hottest trends: Turning penny stocks into vehicles for accumulating crypto, and oftentimes profiting from the resulting share price surge. American Bitcoin, a firm born of a merger between Canadian-founded Hut 8’s bitcoin mining business and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s data centre venture, is one high-profile case. It went public through a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed Gryphon Digital Mining earlier this month. Many of these companies—including CEA—have recently announced stock buybacks to buoy their slumping shares, a possible sign of trouble. Some crypto insiders have called the treasury company trend a systemic risk to the digital asset market.

Risks on the horizon: In a YouTube interview with CEA’s new CEO David Namdar, Zhao said he’s not in control of BNB. “It’s not driven by one company or one person. I’m not driving anything for BNB. I’m doing my part, but I’m not managing everybody in the ecosystem. They don’t answer to me,” he said.

But Jonathan Ip, a lawyer who advises blockchain and cryptocurrency companies, said crypto treasury companies like CEA create new opportunities for manipulating markets that regulators haven’t yet figured out how to address. For example, a company insider could buy and sell the tokens the company holds based on their knowledge of what’s about to come out in an earnings report. Doing the same thing with the company’s shares would be insider trading, but there are no clear rules about crypto, he said. “We probably need some policies around this,” he said.

Zhao can likely stomach a little risk, given his resume. But no matter the effect of the combined volatility of the stock and crypto markets on his net worth, he’ll always have a Million Dollar fallback—in the form of the richly named nicotine-free brand of e-liquid sold at Fat Panda.