MC EXCLUSIVE Big stock-market players are moving into crypto, India is a major market for us, says Binance co-founder Yi He

Yi He Co-CEO, Binance

Yi He, the co-founder and one the key figures behind the success of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange has finally come into the spotlight taking over as the Co-CEO of the company.

Her appointment is perhaps the most critical change in the company’s leadership since founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stepped down in 2023. She will be teaming up with CEO Richard Teng to reach the next one billion users of Binance.

Since Binance’s launch in 2017, Yi had maintained a relatively low public profile compared to CZ, her most recent designation being the chief customer service officer at the exchange.

Yi, life partner of Binance CEO CZ, with whom she has three children, spoke in her first interview to an Indian media outlet during Binance Blockchain Week. She discussed her journey from working behind the scenes to taking on a leadership role, Binance’s next growth phase, the role of women in crypto leadership, why India matters, the evolving stock market–crypto relationship, and more.

So, I don't really feel I have a big role.

I believe something is an achievement already and the title, the money, everything else will follow. It’s not about you have the title, and then you do something. I'm one of the shareholders and I already look at Binance and a lot of details internally. When I see something should be improved, I directly change it. The last whole year, I supported some of the departments, even when they were not reporting to me. We had a few innovations happen, we felt that really worked and they felt ‘you take a lot of responsibility already, so you just do it (as a Co-CEO)’.

There will definitely be two parts to it. First part is our user base – as our industry is beginning to have more cooperation with the traditional, institutional. And I believe the crypto industry and the traditional financial industry will mix together. So, we want our product and our growth to serve more normal users, and that's includes building more innovation (innovative products), not just trade.

Trading and exchange is our first step. But after that, we launched a few different business functions such as Earn, Square, as an Academy. So, that's a new way to let people have more opportunities to learn, understand the industry, or even join our industry to be an entrepreneur.

Another part is, two years ago, I began to manage the HR team. I began to spend the time to learn as an in-power organization…When your are coming to be mature, you really should be putting more attention at the weaker parts. Hiring denizens is important.

That's more about how you build a system and as a forest, they can grow their self. Maybe now we're a small garden today, but one day, I want that to be Amazon forest.

And since we are on the topic of hiring, how would you say the landscape has evolved over the years for women to hold leadership positions in crypto companies?

So being a woman is really hard, to be honest (laughs).

So far, I believe if you are an employee or an industry player, don't think too much about being a female. Forget that. If you want to be a journalist, you just improve your skill and try to be the best journalist. If you want to be a PR and you're just learning to improve your professional skill, forget you are a female.

Especially when you are an entrepreneur, that's much more terrible. Usually when we open the door the man would say ‘ladies first', but if that's the competition, no one will say ladies first. You probably have more challenge.

I really have a lot of female leaders who report to me. Sometimes people are a bit confused about that and feel, oh, is this a pro-female employer? Actually, no. I just like hiring certain kind of people -- most of them are hard workers, most of them are talented people, and these two are fed by this culture. That's my way.

Definitely. India is a big community for us. India is not us, but we respect the regulator and the government.

Sometimes people feel all the crypto guys defend governments, but we don’t. We feel the industry we are expanding into, just like Google, we should be serving more people. And to serve more people, you should have cooperation with the government or regulator.

If you look at the dark web, they are free and independent. Even in crypto industry, we have a small group going that way. But at Binance, we want to serve a billion users. So, we definitely want to go to Indian market and we have a license.

We are a new industry and still need time to go step by step to understand each other. So that's the reason I think Richard (CEO Richard Teng) is really helpful because he has a regulator background and we continue to hire a lot of people like Seker (Binance Head of APAC SB Seker).

We've been to India before. I think this guy is a perfect bridge, he can translate the language. Let companies understand Binance and the regulators.

We launched Binance Junior. We are not just inviting young kids to trade. We don't have trading there. We just feel like we have one more way to let the kids from an early stage, learn what is money and investment.

I have a lot of friends that begin every month probably buy a little bit of BNB and Bitcoin for their kids. And they ask, can we have a sub-account or special product for kids? I felt that's a good idea. So let's do it.

Another part is probably AI. I think AI is a strong innovation for the world. I cannot imagine after 10 years how AI will change our lives. So we don't have a perfect answer, but we begin to invite more AI tech to our teams internally. At the same time, we try to have more AI products in our platform. They are not perfect, but I think it's a step away.

First of all, I have a strong confidence about the industry. Long-term, I believe that the major assets like Bitcoin and BNB will have a better achievement. But in the short term, I'm not sure because I'm not good at trade. I don’t have that type of skill. I just use my skill.

If we look at the internet, in 2000, we had a bubble bust. But after the bubble broke, we still have a lot of very successful companies like Apple, Google rose a lot.

We still have a four-year cycle in. But now the cycle is changing. Before, it was a four-year cycle but now, I'm not sure. Because earlier when the stock prices decreased, the crypto would rise. But now it's changed because the bigger, most powerful stock market players are now joining our industry already.

When the market changes, the economy changes they don't sell the most valuable stock first. They don't sell Bitcoin first. They’ll sell altcoin first. That's the reason. If the player changes, the environment changes I think the logic will change.

I really have a positive way to think about the future. Short-term is sometimes hard. It's very similar with the weather. Sometimes, it's like a sunny day. Sometimes, it's a rainy day.

I think we still have strong confidence and try our best. We believe the crypto industry will support the financial world better. And that will be much more efficient, faster, and more transparent and valuable network in the future.