Original title: How Binance's Yi He became 'the most powerful woman in crypto'—and steered the company past its biggest ordeal
Original Source: Fortune
Original translation: CryptoLeo, Odaily Planet Daily
Editor's Note: (Fortune) recently interviewed Binance co-founder He Yi, covering her efforts in cryptocurrency and the circumstances He Yi faced during CZ's time at Binance and after his departure. Odaily Planet Daily has translated the original text.
In the 1980s, when He Yi was a little girl, she had to fetch water from a well and sometimes relied on a kerosene lamp for lighting. Today, He Yi has become a celebrity in the eyes of millions of Chinese and has become a billionaire with her 10% stake in Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platform. As a co-founder and executive of Binance, she holds significant influence. However, her life has not been easy.
Another co-founder of Binance, CZ, was imprisoned last year in the U.S. due to a $4.3 billion guilty plea agreement. This situation posed significant business challenges for Binance and He Yi, and for He Yi personally, CZ's imprisonment was a painful experience, as CZ was not only the CEO of the company but also the father of her young child.
Today, Binance has weathered the storm. CZ has completed his prison sentence. CZ's guilty plea inflicted a blow on Binance that could have paralyzed most companies, but Binance remains the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platform. He Yi played a crucial role during Binance's development, and after years of holding power behind the scenes, she is stepping forward to publicly manage Binance.
In this rare interview, He Yi (Fortune) shared her journey from a poor rural girl to a cryptocurrency billionaire, recounting the trials she faced during the Binance crisis and sharing her vision for the rapidly changing global financial industry.
Chief Customer Service, approachable He Yi
Throughout He Yi's life and career, she has overcome many obstacles, one of which was learning English. It wasn't until four years ago, in her thirties, that He Yi began to learn English. In a lengthy Zoom interview, He Yi performed well, only seeking assistance from her translator when struggling to explain a Chinese idiom or saying.
He Yi understands the power of communication. At Binance, she is known for her exceptional marketing and customer service skills, which helped Binance become the largest trading platform in the world in less than a year. To this day, she prides herself on listening to customers on platforms like Telegram, X, WeChat, and any other platform where Binance customers can be found, and insists that others at Binance do the same. She requires everyone who comes to work at Binance to spend a few weeks working on the front lines of customer service, a rule that is well-known.
In the interview, He Yi mentioned a recent incident involving a college student who mistakenly sent $500 worth of cryptocurrency to the wrong wallet, a common mistake in the crypto world that usually means the funds are unrecoverable. However, He Yi took the time to track down and recover the mistakenly sent funds. She recalled that the student had told her, 'This money is a drop in the bucket for you, but for me, it's everything.'
He Yi stated that, given her upbringing in a poor family in Sichuan Province, she can empathize with those experiences. She lost her father at the age of nine and at 16, she would spend long hours selling soft drinks outside supermarkets. Although she eventually got into college (pausing to recall the joy of walking into a library for the first time) and became a TV host, she said that her background means she can still resonate with many of Binance's low-income customers.
He Yi's story is reminiscent of Jennifer Lopez's song (Jenny From the Block), which tells of a beautiful woman who remains down-to-earth even after achieving success—this is the type of story Americans are passionate about.
However, Eowyn Chen, CEO of the cryptocurrency company Trust Wallet (who worked with He Yi at Binance), stated that this is not the case in China. Eowyn Chen believes that Chinese people are less inclined to support the underdog and are more likely to insult those who surpass their status. He Yi often becomes the target of articles and social media satire that try to belittle and mock her, but her response is to return negative comments to those who spread them.
She told people, 'Of course, I came from a poor background, but I am successful. Why can’t you do the same?'
He Yi has been recognized by Bloomberg as 'the most influential woman in cryptocurrency,' rising to the pinnacle of the blockchain world with her intelligence, hard work, and confident personality—qualities she shares with co-founder and partner CZ.
Founded Binance
When CZ created Binance in 2017, he established a distinct public image under the name 'CZ,' which is now known to most people. CZ shaped the 'CZ myth' by taking huge risks (such as selling his house in Shanghai in 2014 to buy more Bitcoin) and enthusiastically engaging in the day-to-day banter of the online community known as 'crypto Twitter.'
CZ invited He Yi to join Binance in its early days, but He Yi had recruited CZ a few years earlier, persuading him to join OKCoin (now OKX) as Chief Technology Officer in 2014. Both were passionate about cryptocurrency and shared other commonalities. CZ and He Yi both spent their early years in rural schoolhouses without heating until CZ's father immigrated to Canada, after which things began to improve. CZ worked minimum wage jobs at Chevron and McDonald's during high school. CZ also tends to hit back at those who mock his background, even retweeting meme images of himself in a Golden Arches uniform on Twitter.
It was during their time at OKCoin that the two became a couple and gained extensive experience in operating a large cryptocurrency business. Now, this couple, who have never married but maintain a romantic relationship, closely collaborate both as parents and business partners. (The Wall Street Journal) reported that He Yi and CZ jointly own YZi Labs, the venture capital arm of Binance, holding at least 10% of the parent company.
Regarding her relationship with CZ, He Yi requested to remain anonymous but provided a written statement: 'My personal life is separate from my career. As a co-founder, my achievements and abilities are often questioned because of my personal life,' she wrote, also emphasizing that Binance has 280 million users.
Regardless of how this relationship is on a personal level, it has proven to be very effective on a professional level. He Yi's role at Binance is roughly equivalent to Sheryl Sandberg's position at Facebook. Sandberg helped establish the company in its early days while assisting the then-immature CEO Mark Zuckerberg in finding his footing.
In practical terms, this means that CZ plays the role of Binance's legendary spokesperson and product visionary, while He Yi drives significant growth for Binance through proactive promotional activities (including giving away cars). Her approach is favored by the overseas Chinese community as well as people within China. In China, although cryptocurrency is prohibited in some respects, it remains very popular, partly because it is an easily transferable asset that is not subject to government regulations.
A Binance employee who wished to remain anonymous described He Yi as a demanding boss but also one who supports her employees and speaks up for those around her. When discussing Binance's daily operations, He Yi stated that the company's core principle is 'founder culture,' a term used in the tech industry to describe companies that have retained the spirit of early startups.
For Binance, its early development benefited in part from its willingness to quickly evade regulation and frequently move from one country to another under government scrutiny. While this strategy propelled Binance's astonishing growth, it also sometimes became the company's greatest weakness—this is precisely what led to the loss of its most prominent founder.
The Binance of the post-CZ era
By early 2023, the situation had become increasingly severe. The previous year, after the collapse of the FTX trading platform founded by SBF, the U.S. government doubled down on efforts to introduce policies targeting the cryptocurrency industry, focusing particularly on the largest player in the sector, Binance. For years, the company's lawyers had been in discussions with the Department of Justice over various allegations, but ultimately reached an agreement.
In September 2023, U.S. regulators announced a comprehensive settlement agreement requiring Binance to pay up to $4.3 billion in fines (the largest such penalty in corporate history) and forcing CZ to resign as CEO of Binance, admitting to failing to implement sufficient anti-money laundering measures. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters cited multiple anonymous sources saying that regulators also sought to force He Yi to leave Binance. ('The guilty plea agreement between Binance and U.S. regulators is public,' a company spokesperson stated.)
Despite the heavy blows to its finances and leadership, two years later, under the leadership of CZ's successor Richard Teng, Binance remains the largest cryptocurrency trading platform to date. Richard Teng, a former senior regulatory official in Singapore, helped Binance implement a series of compliance measures and shaped a new image indicating that the company had moved away from its early rapid and loose tactics. In January of this year, Binance also took an important step by formally establishing a board structure, including seven members, including Richard Teng, and three independent directors.
Nevertheless, a former employee of the company told (Fortune) that power at Binance is still held by early executives (CZ, He Yi, and two other early Binance executives, Lilai Wang). The employee added that He Yi has final decision-making authority on all personnel issues and holds the most power in customer experience decisions. Meanwhile, a Binance spokesperson stated that this claim is not accurate, as the company's culture encourages employees to exercise a high degree of autonomy.
Meanwhile, a founder of a venture capital firm described Binance as a company run with an 'iron fist,' which, despite facing new legal restrictions and the challenges of operating a large global business, still maintains its market leader status. This assessment seems to be supported by recent data from CoinGecko, which shows that despite new competitors emerging, Binance still occupies the largest share of trading activity—39% of the trading volume on centralized trading platforms in June.
For He Yi, Binance's continued dominance affirms her 'customer-first' strategy and reflects the personal beliefs of the company's founders in cryptocurrency—she believes this technology is transformative, comparable to the impact of the internet on traditional media and television.
He Yi predicts that cryptocurrency will accelerate its infiltration into the traditional financial system through stablecoins and other blockchain technologies, with a complete integration of both fields occurring within the next five to ten years.
On a personal level, He Yi stated that the mass adoption of cryptocurrency feels like another significant technological transformation she has experienced since her teenage years, when her home had no electricity or running water.
Reflecting on her journey, He Yi quoted a saying from Xi Murong: 'Since we said it was good, let’s not talk about the pain anymore.'
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