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Yi He
Status
Born in 1986. Living in Dubai, UAE.
Criminal status: No personal convictions; Binance pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act and IEEPA violations in 2023 and agreed to a USD 4.3B settlement
Summary
Yi He co-founded Binance with Changpeng Zhao in 2017, helping to build it into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in under two years. She served as Binance's chief marketing officer from its launch, then was appointed head of Binance Labs — later rebranded YZi Labs — in August 2022, overseeing a venture and incubation portfolio now exceeding USD 10 billion across 300+ companies. In December 2025, she was named co-CEO of Binance alongside Richard Teng.
Born in a rural village in Sichuan province, China, Yi He grew up without running water or electricity; her father died when she was nine. She worked as a television travel-show host before discovering Bitcoin in 2013 and joining cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin, where she recruited Changpeng Zhao as CTO. The pair later co-founded Binance in 2017; she is currently based in Dubai, UAE.
Business Relationships
Yi He co-founded Binance and YZi Labs with Changpeng Zhao, who remained Binance's CEO until his November 2023 guilty plea; she now shares the co-CEO role with Richard Teng, a former Singapore central bank regulator appointed CEO in late 2023. Prior to Binance, she worked alongside Changpeng Zhao at OKCoin (now OKX) beginning in 2014, where she recruited him as CTO.
Ownership
Yi He holds a reported approximately 10% stake in Binance, making her a significant co-owner of the exchange. She co-owns YZi Labs with Changpeng Zhao; the firm was rebranded from Binance Labs in January 2025 and operates as a family office and venture fund. Binance introduced a formal board structure in January 2025 with seven directors, including three independent members.
Family & Heirs
Yi He and Changpeng Zhao are long-term partners and have three children together; the relationship predates Binance. They have never married. Both are actively involved in running Binance and YZi Labs.
Evidence
Analysis
Yi He's record shows genuine positive momentum alongside serious unresolved risk. Binance Charity, funded by the company she co-owns, expanded its education philanthropy with full-tuition scholarships for 500 young Africans and 500 scholarships for compliance professionals, while the exchange secured a first-of-its-kind global regulatory license in Abu Dhabi and, within days of her formal appointment as co-CEO, resolved an internal insider-trading case in about 24 hours and rewarded the whistleblowers who reported it. She has also publicly ruled out large-scale layoffs as Binance pursues AI-driven growth.
Set against this, the compliance culture behind Binance's USD 4.3B guilty plea for facilitating transactions tied to Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Iran does not appear to have fully reformed under her co-CEO tenure: the exchange fired compliance investigators who found evidence of new Iran-linked flows, prompting Senator Richard Blumenthal to open a formal Senate inquiry into USD 1.7 billion in transactions allegedly benefiting Iranian government entities and Russian sanctions evaders. Binance also failed to secure an EU MiCA license, and the exchange now holds roughly 87% of the USD1 stablecoin issued by a venture co-owned by the family of the U.S. president who pardoned Binance's founder in October 2025.
Questions
What was Yi He's specific knowledge of and responsibility for Binance's anti-money laundering failures during 2017–2022, given that she was a co-founder and senior executive throughout? The DOJ did not name her as a defendant, but both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. regulators initially sought to require her departure as part of the settlement.
When Binance fired compliance investigators in late 2025 and early 2026 — shortly after they reported evidence of ongoing Iran-linked sanctions violations to top executives — what role, if any, did Yi He play in those decisions as the executive Fortune described as having "final say in all personnel matters"?
As Binance's business ties to World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin have deepened, with the exchange now holding roughly 87% of its supply, what oversight has Yi He exercised over that relationship in her role as co-CEO, given Binance's own sanctions-violation history and the stablecoin issuer's ownership by the family of the president who pardoned her co-founder?
Redemption Arc
Yi He's early actions as co-CEO show some genuine governance improvement: Binance's roughly 24-hour resolution of an internal insider-trading case, its new Abu Dhabi license, and her public commitment against mass layoffs all signal a more disciplined posture than the exchange's pre-2023 era. But the pattern of firing compliance staff who flag sanctions risk has continued into her tenure, and the Senate's new inquiry into USD 1.7 billion in Iran- and Russia-linked flows — alongside Binance's expanding financial ties to the family of the president who pardoned its founder — raises the same unresolved questions about compliance culture that shaped the 2023 settlement. The trajectory remains genuinely mixed.