Binance CFO Kaiser Ng leaves days after $6.3 billion hack as Justin Yek takes over: what it changes for your funds

What Binance said and when

TechCrunch published the news at 01:24 SGT on November 8 (17:24 UTC on November 7), citing Bloomberg, and Reuters followed within minutes. We could not open Bloomberg's article, so the statement below is as Reuters and Investing.com quote it:

"Kaiser Ng has decided to pursue a new venture after more than five years at Binance, with a transition plan implemented over the last half year," Yi He said, adding, "We wish him the best in his next chapter."

Reuters says Ng has been CFO since January 2022 and worked at Kraken before that, according to his LinkedIn profile. Yek was most recently vice-president of finance at Airwallex. Coinfomania adds that he worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. We have that detail only from Coinfomania among the pages we could open.

Neither Reuters nor TechCrunch reports any finding that Ng's exit is connected to the theft. Investing.com says Binance framed it as a long-planned transition. That framing comes from the company, and no independent source we read confirms the start date of the handover.

Does the timing fit the company's account?

Taken at face value, "the last half year" puts the start of the transition around May 2026. That is our arithmetic, and the phrase is loose.

Set that next to the attack timeline in Elliptic's laundering report, which relays Binance's own account:

On that reading the plan would predate the first compromise Binance describes, which fits its description of a planned departure. It proves nothing either way about why the announcement came now, and the company has not published a date.

What the new CFO inherits

Our reading is that the job Yek takes on is unusually heavy in the coming weeks, because the promise to cover the loss sits on Binance's own balance sheet. Binance told Cointelegraph it "will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not users", and it said on October 30 that it had set aside $6.34 billion, including $5 billion in the affected cryptocurrencies. These are the figures on the table:

The outflow was 2.1% of those assets, according to CNBC, on $4.65 billion of withdrawals and $1.01 billion of deposits.

Two open items stand out. Cointelegraph reported that the frozen funds are separate from Binance's replacement of the stolen tokens, and we found no statement on what happens to frozen money that is eventually returned. CertiK also told Cointelegraph on October 30 that it needed more information to verify the $5 billion replacement figure.

The latest reserve snapshot we could read is dated October 31. crypto.news reports user USDT holdings of 29,483,062,742, down 7.95% from October 1, and USDT reserve coverage of 100.00%, down from 103.88%. User BTC rose 0.52% to 692,187 and user ETH fell 3.80% to 3,654,919. The snapshot predates the reopening of withdrawals, so it does not capture the November outflow. The next one will be the first reserve report to include it.

Where the stolen money and the reopening stand

Elliptic's update of 08:00 UTC on November 7 counts more than 20,000 wallets on 16 blockchains, at least 36 services and at least 65,000 transactions used so far. It says a negligible amount has likely been cashed out and that funds which have not moved are very likely still held by North Korea. Based on the Bybit case, it expects the attacker to swap the ETH for bitcoin and then try to cash out through OTC brokers and exchanges. The FBI blames a North Korean group for the theft, and Pyongyang denies it, Reuters notes.

Withdrawals restarted in phases at 06:00 UTC on November 1, and CNBC reports that all 15 networks and assets in the first phase were open by 12:36 UTC. Binance said volumes then declined and stabilized. The remaining coins are the ones listed in the checks below.

Market reaction

BNB showed no visible shock in the first hour and a half. At about 02:51 SGT, the OKX spot ticker showed BNB at $696.17, against a 24-hour range of $692.30 to $697.16. Bybit's spot ticker showed $696.42. BTC traded at $75,819 on OKX. Those are readings from early Sunday in Asia, a quiet window, and they cover only about 90 minutes after the news. The ticker alone cannot say how traders will price this when the week starts.

For positioning, our liquidations page and funding rates board update through the session.

What to check if you have funds on Binance

Check your own pending items and the official notices. A change of CFO gives you no new step to take on an account.

1. If you are waiting on a coin, read the exact coin-and-network pair. CryptoTicker reported on November 6 that Binance is "working to" reopen HYPE, INJ, APT, PLASMA, NEAR and LTC withdrawals by the end of the following week, with no fixed date. Our note on those assets has the checks.
2. Keep your records: balance screenshots, transaction IDs and the network chosen for each transfer.
3. Compare the date on any reserve figure you see. The October 31 snapshot is older than the outflow.
4. Before an internal transfer, confirm which Binance platform you are on. Yi He said on November 7 that local fiat platforms such as Binance Turkey, Binance Thailand and Binance US do not share an account system with the main site, according to Odaily.
5. Ignore anyone offering to speed up a withdrawal or to claim compensation for a fee. CryptoTicker, citing Binance's warnings through Cointelegraph, says fee-based speed-ups are scams. Binance does not ask for 2FA codes, seed phrases or passwords. Open the exchange only through the official app or an address you type yourself.

Our report on the 2,300 BTC converted from stolen altcoins follows where the stolen coins went.

What we could not confirm

We could not read Bloomberg's report. No source we opened names Ng's new venture, gives a last working day or says whether Yek has already started; Reuters says only that he "is taking over". We did not find a reserve snapshot newer than October 31, or confirmation that the full zero-knowledge proof Binance said would take 40 to 50 hours has been completed. Elliptic counts $6.43 billion stolen while Binance, Reuters and TechCrunch use $6.3 billion. We show each figure with its source and did not reconcile them. A Foresight News flash also reported a $6.8 billion figure, which we could not open or verify, so we do not use it.

Quick answers

Who is the new Binance CFO?

Justin Yek, most recently vice-president of finance at Airwallex, according to Reuters. He succeeds Kaiser Ng, CFO since January 2022.

Did Kaiser Ng leave because of the hack?

No source we read says so. Co-CEO Yi He said he is pursuing a new venture and that a transition plan ran over the last half year. That is the company's account.

Does this change Binance's promise to cover the stolen funds?

Nothing in the reports says it does. Reuters repeats that Binance said it will fully reimburse affected customers.