Binance CFO Kaiser Ng steps down as Justin Yek takes over after hack

Binance has a new chief financial officer. Binance CFO Kaiser Ng is leaving after more than five years at the exchange, and Justin Yek, a finance executive from the payments company Airwallex, is taking his place, according to Fox Business.

A planned exit, timed awkwardly

Co-CEO He Yi said in a statement that Ng is leaving to "pursue a new venture." She said the handover had been put in place over the past half year, and a Binance spokesperson told Fox Business the transition was planned more than six months ago and has nothing to do with the October 29 cyberattack. Bloomberg first reported the change, and TechCrunch followed.

Still, the timing is hard to miss. The news landed nine days after hackers took about $6.3 billion in crypto from the exchange, which Fox Business describes as likely the largest digital asset theft on record. Yek most recently served as vice president of finance at Airwallex.

Where the $6.3 billion recovery stands

The FBI has blamed North Korean hackers tied to the group known as TraderTraitor. Binance says the attackers used a fake job interview to compromise an employee's computer, then abused internal systems, including an AI tool, to push through unauthorized transactions. Our earlier piece on what the Binance hack means for your account covers the steps users should take.

The recovery numbers have moved quickly. Right after the breach, Binance said roughly $3 billion had been frozen, and blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Elliptic also traced the theft to North Korea, according to TechCrunch. By November 1, the exchange said it had covered 95% of the stolen assets and would absorb the financial hit itself. When withdrawals reopened, about $4.6 billion flowed out against $1.0 billion coming in, a net outflow of $3.6 billion in the first hours.

Then, in a November 3 update, Binance said it had replenished 98% of the affected token assets and that about $2.85 billion of the stolen funds had been frozen or intercepted. Co-CEO Richard Teng told Fox Business that customers will not bear any losses. Our report on how withdrawals resumed in phases has more on the outflows.

The job Justin Yek walks into

A new CFO now inherits that cleanup, along with a separate Justice Department review of Binance's 2023 settlement and the planned shutdown of Binance Pool on November 10. How Yek reports the cost of the hack in Binance's finances will be the first real test of the new role. Binance has said the stolen funds will not come out of customer balances, so the loss has to land somewhere on its own books, and the finance chief is the person who decides how that is presented to regulators, partners and users. More coverage is in our crypto section.