Binance names co-founder Yi He as new co-CEO

Binance has named co-founder Yi He as its new co-CEO.

The move was announced by the cryptocurrency exchange on December 3.

Yi He will share leadership duties at Binance.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

After her co-CEO appointment, Binance did not outline how Yi He or Richard Teng will split duties, Fortune says Teng will focus on legal plus administrative work while Yi He will run retail and product 1.
Binance is under a five-year Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) monitorship (an independent third-party compliance oversight arrangement) that requires compliance undertakings after it admitted to willful violations of anti-money laundering (AML) laws 2.
The dual leadership setup raises questions about accountability 1. Former regulator Richard Teng took the helm in mid-2023 after Changpeng Zhao (CZ) resigned amid a U.S. criminal probe, while Yi He co-founded Binance with CZ in 2017 and owns about 10% of the company.
Clarity on who leads compliance remediation (fixing past deficiencies) versus growth work is vital, since Binance still carries a reputation for illicit activity despite tougher controls 1.

The settlement created two independent monitorships, one from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on AML and sanctions remediation, another from the U.S. Treasury Department on Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) duties with five-year access to Binance records 3.
The company must conduct a lookback (a forensic review of past transactions) to identify and report previously unreported suspicious activity across well over 100,000 missed reports involving terrorist organizations, ransomware, or darknet markets (anonymous online marketplaces for illegal goods) 2.
Compliance tech vendors can time outreach to Binance’s remediation timeline and the monitorship review schedule with tools for transaction monitoring or sanctions screening or Know Your Customer (KYC) automation or suspicious activity reporting 2.
With an estimated 60% share of centralized virtual currency spot trading (spot crypto trading on centralized exchanges), Binance can turn wins into reference cases for selling similar tools to other exchanges under regulatory pressure 4.