Power Shift at Binance: The Dual-CEO Experiment with He Yi and Richard Teng

In December 2025, Binance made a decision.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange announced that co-founder Yi He would serve as co-CEO alongside current CEO Richard Teng.

This wasn’t a simple personnel adjustment. Binance has nearly 300 million users, but at the same time, it faces a historic $4.3 billion fine and is under five years of independent monitoring by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

At Blockchain Week Dubai (BBW 2025), Yi He made her first public speech as co-CEO. Her message was clear: Binance is bidding farewell to “wild growth” and moving toward “institutional maturity.”

The core question is: How do you transform a crypto-native exchange into an “evergreen” company under regulatory constraints?

The co-CEO structure is Binance’s answer.

Two CEOs, One External, One Internal

Dual-CEO arrangements aren’t new in the business world, but Binance’s approach is different—this isn’t about sharing power, but precise division of labor.

Yi He calls this “1+1>2.” The two CEOs have very clear responsibilities:

Richard Teng: Handle Regulation

Richard Teng is responsible for external matters. With decades of experience in traditional finance, he’s positioned as Binance’s “best bridge to global regulators.”

His duties are clear: secure global licenses, raise compliance standards, and ensure smooth operations in every jurisdiction. For a company under US regulatory scrutiny, this role is critical.

Yi He: Run Internal Operations

Yi He oversees internal operations. As a co-founder, she shaped Binance’s culture from the start.

At the Dubai conference, Yi He highlighted three things:

• First, user-first. This is Binance’s core, and the driving force for product innovation.
• Second, build systems. The company can no longer rely on one person; organizational systems must drive operations.
• Third, bet on AI. Technological innovation is the fundamental driver of industry progress.

In terms of business, Yi He manages user experience, corporate culture, HR, customer support, institutional business, marketing, P2P, and wealth management.

The logic of this division is clear: Richard Teng sets up the framework, and Yi He innovates within it. One builds external trust, the other keeps internal vitality.

Hiring, Hiring at Scale

In Dubai, Yi He repeatedly mentioned one phrase: “evergreen organization.”

What does it mean? Binance can’t rely on any single leader—it must rely on systems. How? By increasing “talent density.”

Yi He listed “hiring” as the top priority. Data shows Binance hired over 1,000 new employees in 2024, with more than 500 open positions in tech, compliance, customer support, and other core roles.

This isn’t just expansion, but a reconstruction of capabilities.

Binance’s early success depended largely on the charisma and decisions of its founders. But with nearly 300 million users and operations across dozens of countries, individual ability is no longer enough.

More importantly, regulatory failures often come down to people—not enough professional compliance staff, or overreliance on founder decision-making.

So when Yi He talks about “talent density,” it’s essentially about replacing individual ability with organizational capability. This is the inevitable choice in the post-founder era.

AI’s Dual Role

Technological innovation is another of Yi He’s priorities. She believes AI is the fundamental driver of industry progress.

Binance’s AI layout has two tracks:

On one hand, AI is used for compliance and risk monitoring. Trade surveillance, sanctions screening, KYC automation—all require AI support. This is crucial for meeting FinCEN’s regulatory requirements.

On the other hand, AI is used to optimize products and user experience. From customer support to trading optimization, risk alerts to personalized services, AI is permeating every step.

The logic is clear: use AI to nail compliance first, then use AI to drive innovation.

Listing Standards: No Fees, Give Users Cheap Tokens

During a Q&A session in Dubai, Yi He revealed a major shift in Binance’s listing strategy.

Zero Tolerance for “White Glove” Corruption

There have long been rumors of “white glove” corruption in Binance’s token listings. Yi He responded directly: “Binance has never had white gloves,” and anyone claiming to be a relative or friend is a scammer.

She also disclosed the listing rule: Binance does not charge listing fees. Project teams wanting to list must airdrop or provide low-priced tokens to users.

Yi He said that it’s precisely because the standards and thresholds are high that some seek to profit from it. But as Binance gains more global licenses, the crypto market is “no longer a lawless zone, and any behavior undermining a fair and transparent market will be severely punished.”

Aligning Exchange and User Interests

Eliminating listing fees and requiring projects to give tokens to users is a clever design.

It aligns the interests of the exchange and retail users, while keeping out projects that are all hype and no real value.

Project teams must share value with users, making listing a tool for user acquisition rather than a revenue source.

This shift is crucial. From “volume-driven” to “user value-driven,” Binance is setting new rules for the entire industry.

Yi He also emphasized that she doesn’t come from privilege, so she understands ordinary users better. “Binance’s innovation must start from the user’s perspective.”

With nearly 300 million users and daily trading volumes of tens of billions of dollars, continuing to insist on “user first” is itself a testament to governance capability.

Betting on the Middle East and Asia

Yi He clarified Binance’s geographic expansion focus: the Middle East and Asia.

Two Pillar Markets

Binance will strengthen its presence in the Middle East and Asia, making them the main engines of growth.

Holding BBW 2025 in Dubai is itself a signal. Dubai, with its Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), has become a global crypto hub.

In Asia, South Korea is regarded by Binance as “one of the most important countries.” Binance promises continued investment, improved user experience, and treats Korea as a “core market that can never be abandoned.”

Why these places? Because of clear regulations and rapid growth. Demonstrating compliance in these markets avoids being dragged down by US legacy issues and accelerates user growth.

1 Billion User Target

Binance’s goal is 1 billion users. Growing from nearly 300 million to 1 billion isn’t just about numbers—it’s a comprehensive test of infrastructure, compliance, and operational efficiency.

The regulatory-friendly environments in the Middle East and Asia make this goal possible. Success in these markets brings users as well as compliance milestones, strengthening Binance’s global image.

Transformation Isn’t Easy

Despite a clear strategy, institutional transformation is never simple. The co-CEO system faces three challenges:

How Will the Two CEOs Work Together?

Two CEOs—who has the final say? Especially in high-risk decisions involving regulatory risk and operational execution.

Yi He’s “1+1>2” relies on clear division—external vs. internal, compliance vs. innovation. More importantly, the two CEOs must be compatible politically and culturally. There will be friction between growth and compliance, but the key is making it constructive.

How to Balance Innovation and Compliance?

Binance is now under FinCEN/DOJ scrutiny. Every new product and market entry must pass compliance checks, which will inevitably slow Yi He’s pace of innovation.

The solution is to prioritize: use AI for compliance and risk management first, then for product innovation.

The co-CEO system is designed to manage this tension between speed and compliance, ensuring that innovation doesn’t outpace compliance.

Can They Execute Properly?

Binance is undergoing a difficult transformation: from a decentralized, high-growth startup culture to a formal, regulated financial institution.

Yi He’s focus on talent density is laying the foundation for this transformation. Hiring world-class experts makes decision-making more professional and reduces single-point risk. If an “evergreen” system can really be built, it will greatly reduce regulatory and operational risks.

Summary

Yi He becoming co-CEO and her strategies outlined in Dubai are not passive responses to regulation, but active evolution.

The co-CEO structure is a key step for Binance in shifting from wild growth to sustainable scale. Richard Teng handles external regulation, Yi He upgrades internal systems, enhances talent, and drives AI innovation.

From “talent density” to AI deployment, from user-first listing standards to betting on the Middle East and Asia, Binance is building a long-term foundation.

Over the next five to ten years, Binance’s success will depend on balancing these two CEOs’ domains. In the short term, it must accept regulatory constraints; in the long term, it aims to become global infrastructure connecting crypto innovation and traditional finance.

The co-CEO system is the organizational tool to achieve this goal. Its results will become an industry model for large exchange governance in the post-founder era.

What Binance is writing is not just a story of one company’s transformation, but a turning point for the entire crypto industry from “lawless zone” to “institutional maturity.”

When Yi He said in Dubai that “Binance wants to be a hundred-year company,” she was envisioning a more responsible, sustainable, and stronger crypto world.

Whether this experiment succeeds will redefine what “responsible, scaled growth” means.