Binance Holdings Ltd. Chief Financial Officer Kaiser Ng is leaving the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, a move announced little more than a week after hackers drained $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from the platform.
Justin Yek will take over as CFO. Co-CEO Yi He said in a statement that Ng's exit lets him "pursue a new venture after more than five years at Binance," adding that a succession plan had been "implemented over the last half year." Binance characterized the change as a long-planned transition rather than a response to the breach.
The hack, one of the largest on record in digital assets, forced Binance to freeze withdrawals for several days. After accounts were unfrozen, users pulled a net $3.6 billion within the first few hours, according to TechCrunch.
Binance and the FBI have attributed the attack to a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor. The company said it would absorb the loss, stating that "Binance will bear the financial impact of the stolen funds. These losses will not be passed on to users."
The incident is expected to intensify scrutiny from international regulators, who have kept close watch on Binance since its multibillion-dollar settlement with U.S. authorities over anti-money-laundering violations in late 2023. The exchange has spent recent years overhauling compliance, security and custody protocols to satisfy regulators and attract institutional investors.
As CFO, Yek inherits the task of steadying the exchange's finances in the wake of the loss. The $6.3 billion figure far exceeds earlier crypto heists, including the $625 million Ronin Network exploit in 2022 and the $530 million Coincheck breach in 2018, and raises fresh questions about the vulnerabilities of centralized exchanges.