Binance Labs Announces First Batch of Incubated Projects for S6: Ethena Labs, NFP, and Shogun

Binance Labs announced on its official social media accounts the first batch of incubation projects for its S6 (Incubation Season 6), including Ethena Labs, NFP, and Shogun.

Binance Incubation Season Overview

The Binance Incubation Season refers to a program hosted by the Binance exchange aimed at incubating startups and projects in the

cryptocurrency

and blockchain space. Binance provides support and resources to help these ventures succeed. This support may include funding, technical assistance, marketing, mentorship, and other forms of guidance to help new projects thrive and gain exposure.

The First Batch of Incubated Projects in Binance Incubation Season 6

Ethena

Ethena Labs is a derivatives infrastructure provider aiming to transform ETH into the first bankless-native yield stablecoin. The idea for this product was inspired by Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, who mentioned creating a stablecoin backed by an equal amount of BTC spot longs and futures shorts in “Dust on Crust.” Ethena Labs subsequently turned Arthur's concept into reality but chose ETH as the primary asset underlying both the spot and futures positions. In other words, the collateral for USDe is composed of an equal amount of spot ETH longs and futures ETH shorts.

Compared to other stablecoins, USDe offers higher yields. USDe staking users can benefit from dual returns from the collateral assets:

• Stable returns from spot long staking. Ethena Labs supports staking spot ETH through liquidity staking derivative protocols like Lido, earning annualized returns of 3% to 5%.

• Unstable returns from futures short funding rates.

According to public information, Ethena has completed two rounds of financing: a seed round of $6.5 million with Dragonfly as the lead investor and participation from Deribit, Bybit, OKX, Gemini, Huobi, Arthur Hayes, and his family office; and a strategic round at a $300 million valuation, raising $14 million with joint leads from Dragonfly, Brevan Howard Digital, and Arthur Hayes' family office Maelstrom.

NFPrompt

NFPrompt is an AI-driven platform tailored for Web3 creators to generate user-generated content (UGC). It allows users to evolve custom NFT artwork with the support of AI tools, facilitating the transition from amateurs to professional creators. Through NFPrompt, users can transform plain text content into dynamic and visually appealing digital content, such as images, videos, animations, PFP avatars, music, and 3D models, among others.

According to NFPrompt, the project currently relies on models from Midjourney v5 and Stable Diffusion for AI generation. However, NFPrompt is also exploring and developing its own drawing models to better support artists' creations.

Shogun

Shogun is an intent-centric protocol designed to maximize traders' extractable value (TEV) through optimized order flow and comprehensive chain abstraction. Initially launched on the Cosmos cross-chain, Shogun enhances user experience through order flow aggregation and intelligent liquidity routing on an asynchronous network. Its flagship product, DIMM (Decentralized Interchain Market Maker), utilizes IBC and Interchain Accounts (ICA) to execute automated logic for dynamic rebalancing strategies, leveraging available on-chain liquidity for hedging purposes.