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Binance’s chief financial officer is leaving after a record theft of $6,3 billion
The largest crypto exchange Binance announced the departure of Chief Financial Officer Kaiser Ng just nine days after the largest hack in the history of the crypto industry, in which hackers stole more than $6,3 billion. He will be replaced by Justin Yek, who previously served as vice president of finance at Airwallex. Binance co-CEO Yi He said Ng decided to pursue his own project after five years with the company, and that the personnel change had been in the works for the past six months, Bloomberg reports.
In October 29 hackers withdrew billions of dollars from Binance crypto wallets. According to the company, the attack was prepared over several months: the perpetrators used malware disguised as software downloads and fake job offers for engineers to gain access to employees’ computers. The bulk of the funds was stolen in a matter of minutes.
After the hack, Binance paused withdrawals for several days. When operations resumed, customers withdrew a net total of about $3,6 billion within the first hours. The exchange pledged to fully reimburse the losses at its own expense, without passing them on to users.
The FBI and analytics firm Chainalysis link the attack to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. Blockchain analysts estimate that about $2,8 billion of the stolen assets were frozen, but billions remain under the control of the attackers. Pyongyang denies involvement.
Kaiser Ng had led Binance’s finance function since January 2022, previously holding the same role at Kraken. His successor Justin Yek comes from the international payments company Airwallex. Binance did not disclose the exact date of the handover or details of Ng’s new project.
The executive in charge of finance at the world’s largest crypto exchange is leaving the company amid a record theft, a billion-dollar outflow of customer funds, and an investigation into an international cyberattack. Binance insists the CFO change was planned long before the hack.
Incredible, but true....
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