YZi Labs takes Season 4 cohort to Bhutan as GMC stakes claim to crypto hub crown

YZi Labs (the venture company formerly known as Binance Labs) has officially opened the application process for the latest season of its EASY Residency cohort, with applications open to founders until June 21st, 2026.

The latest edition (Season 4) will also be the first time the program brings a founder cohort physically to the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), the new, sovereign tech city that Bhutan is currently developing. 

YZi Labs goes into Bhutan’s tech city 

YZi Labs’ EASY Residency is not a new idea. The program has been active since Season 1 launched in mid 2025, when the firm used it to back early-stage founders under the same mission it has operated on for seven years: helping founders build what lasts. 

The program runs for ten weeks (five online and five in-person) and offers accepted founders up to $500,000 in funding with housing, meals, and workspace covered during the residency. Each cohort usually focuses on Web3 with a special focus on global payments, AI, and Biotech.

The latest YZi Labs cohort will experience the program evolving from a “virtually-held” or conventional-location format into something more geopolitically deliberate: gathering a cohort of Web3, AI, and Biotech founders inside a city that is actively competing for exactly that kind of talent and capital.

The shift comes as the incubator space becomes increasingly crowded. With YZi Labs competing against a growing list of crypto-native accelerators and traditional VC-backed programs that have all identified early-stage Web3 and AI infrastructure as their next target. 

What is Bhutan building in the GMC? 

Gelephu Mindfulness City is Bhutan’s most ambitious economic project so far, designed as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) to attract international investors, technology companies, financial institutions, and family offices. It will also operate with its own regulatory framework, which will separate it from Bhutan’s broader national framework in some key aspects.

Notably, Bhutan is actively trying to create a more supportive atmosphere for international business by establishing clearer legal frameworks for cross-border trade. A key move happened on May 12, when Bhutan and Singapore signed a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, which was the third bilateral tax treaty negotiated by the Royal Government of Bhutan, with direct participation from the GMC’s authorities.

The agreement will help prevent investors from being taxed twice on the same income, thus making Bhutan more attractive to international investors who might’ve avoided smaller markets in the first place.

GMC Governor Dasho Lotay Tshering described the Singapore signing as more than just an economic arrangement, calling it “formal recognition by Singapore of GMC and its vision.” 

Interestingly, GMC has already received official interest from partners. Yesterday, May 21, a stablecoin payments company called RedotPay announced that it was establishing a local presence to operate under GMC’s regulatory framework, directly integrating its operations with the city’s compliance and stablecoin payment standards.

As Cryptopolitan reported on May 14, BTSE Bhutan announced that it formally received an In-Principle Approval (IPA) from the Gelephu Financial Services Office (GFSO) in Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) to obtain a Financial Services License (FSL).

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