Binance CFO Kaiser Ng Leaves After $6.3 Billion Hack as Justin Yek Takes Over
Binance has named Justin Yek as its new chief financial officer, replacing Kaiser Ng nine days after hackers stole about $6.3 billion from the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in the biggest theft of its kind on record.
The change was announced on Saturday, 7 November, by Binance co-CEO Yi He. Ng is leaving after more than five years at the company to pursue a new venture, she said, and the handover follows a transition plan put in place over the past six months. Bloomberg first reported the change, and Reuters reported the appointment the same day.
Yek most recently served as vice president of finance at Airwallex, the payments and financial technology company. Ng had been Binance’s chief financial officer since January 2022, having previously held a finance role at rival exchange Kraken.
A planned handover, or a casualty of the hack?
The timing of the announcement has drawn attention. The leadership change came barely a week after the 29 October breach, when attackers drained roughly $6.34 billion in digital assets from Binance, according to the company’s own preliminary report.
Binance has been emphatic that the two events are not connected. Yi He said the transition plan had been implemented over the last half year, which would place the decision well before the attack. Neither Binance nor Yi He has blamed Ng for the breach, and no evidence has been published linking the finance chief’s departure to the theft.
What the company has not disclosed is when exactly Ng will leave, when Yek formally takes over, or what Ng’s next venture will be. That silence leaves the most basic questions about the handover unanswered, even as Yek inherits a finance operation still working through the fallout of the hack.
The recovery, nine days on
Binance said in an update on 3 November that about 98 per cent of the affected token assets had been replenished by 31 October using company-controlled resources. It separately estimated that $2.85 billion had been frozen or intercepted, though that figure remains subject to reconciliation and market movements.
Withdrawals have been restored in stages since 1 November, with more assets — including HYPE and APT — reopened on 8 November. The company says the rest depend on security checks being completed.
The FBI has attributed the theft to a North Korean cyber operation known as TraderTraitor. North Korea denied any role, and Pyongyang has rejected the accusation outright. Reuters reported that attackers gained access to employee computers months before the theft through malicious software downloads and fraudulent recruitment approaches aimed at engineers.
What Yek inherits
The new chief financial officer arrives at a moment when Binance faces scrutiny on more than one front. US Treasury moved against another exchange this week, cutting MEXC off from the American banking system over alleged illicit flows, a reminder that regulators are watching crypto platforms closely.
Yek’s background is in payments rather than crypto. At Airwallex, he oversaw finance at a firm that builds cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses — experience that may matter as Binance rebuilds trust with users, banks and regulators after the breach.
The appointment also lands against a backdrop of rising cyberattacks on corporate networks, with exchanges and financial firms among the most targeted. Binance has not said whether Yek’s remit will include a review of the controls that failed in October.
For now, the exchange’s message is that this was an orderly succession, planned long before the worst week in its history. Whether users and regulators accept that account will depend on what happens next — how quickly the remaining withdrawals are restored, and whether the full scale of the theft is ever independently verified.
