Binance said on Saturday that its chief financial officer, Kaiser Ng, is leaving the company and that Justin Yek will succeed him, days after hackers stole a record $6.3 billion from the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Ng is leaving after more than five years at Binance to pursue a new venture, co-chief executive Yi He said in a statement. The company said a transition plan had been put in place over the past six months, presenting the handover as a planned move rather than a reaction to the theft.
Yek joins from Airwallex, the payments company, where he was vice-president of finance. He previously worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, and his appointment puts an executive with traditional finance experience in charge of Binance’s finances at a delicate moment for the exchange.
The change comes barely a week after the theft, disclosed on 30 October, which Binance described as the largest crypto heist on record. The exchange said it had covered 95 per cent of the stolen funds from its own reserves and resumed withdrawals on 1 November, and about $3 billion of the stolen cryptocurrency was frozen. The FBI blamed the attack on TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group.
Binance has not said whether the hack played any part in Ng’s departure, and the details of the handover rest on the company’s own announcement. The timing nevertheless leaves its finance function in new hands while it deals with the aftermath of the theft, including tracing the stolen funds and answering questions from users and regulators about how the breach happened.
The departure also comes as the wider crypto industry faces renewed scrutiny of exchange security. Binance, which handles more trading volume than any other exchange, has spent the past week reassuring customers that their funds are safe, and Yek’s first task will be to steady confidence in its finances after the costliest hack in the industry’s history.
Sources: Reuters, “Binance CFO Kaiser Ng steps down, Justin Yek named new finance chief” (https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/binance-cfo-kaiser-ng-steps-down-justin-yek-named-new-finance-chief-2026-11-07/); TechCrunch, “Binance CFO is leaving to ‘pursue a new venture’ after $6.3 billion hack” (https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/07/binance-cfo-is-leaving-to-pursue-a-new-venture-after-6-3-billion-hack/).
