Binance rarely offers a clear view into the machinery that drives the world’s largest crypto exchange, but its latest leadership overhaul has opened a rare window into how power is being redistributed inside the company. At YourDailyAnalysis, we see this move not as a routine executive reshuffle, but as an attempt to redefine governance after a turbulent year marked by regulatory clashes, courtroom drama and, ultimately, Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential pardon of Changpeng Zhao.
When Binance revealed that co-founder Yi He would step in as co-CEO alongside current chief executive Richard Teng, many observers dismissed it as a symbolic gesture. Yet the deeper context suggests something more consequential. Yi He has never been the public face of Binance, but she has long been its structural backbone – shaping product strategy, global user expansion, marketing architecture and, crucially, the company’s investment arm.
Teng represents an entirely different center of gravity: regulatory discipline and institutional credibility. A former official at the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the chief regulator at Abu Dhabi Global Market, he became Binance’s stabilizing figure during the height of U.S. legal pressure in 2023.
From our vantage point at YourDailyAnalysis, Binance has been inching toward a dual-power model for years – one leader for compliance and regulatory legitimacy, the other for innovation, growth and ecosystem strategy. By formalizing Yi He’s role, the company simply codifies a structure that existed de facto all along.
For Yi He, this marks a long-delayed public acknowledgment of her influence. Her professional trajectory – from Chinese TV host to OKCoin marketer – did not suggest that she would become one of the most powerful figures in global crypto. Yet she brought CZ into the industry, helped design Binance’s early culture of hypergrowth, and steered YZi Labs, the venture arm now overseeing hundreds of projects and billions in capital.
Her rise also carries complexities. Yi He’s name appears in U.S. investigative materials; prosecutors have requested her correspondence regarding Binance.US operations, and in 2024 she sent a personal letter to a federal judge defending CZ and identifying herself as his business partner and mother of his children. That history underscores a critical point: Binance’s leadership is not distancing itself from CZ’s circle – it is elevating it back into formal authority.
At the same time, Binance is clearly pursuing what we at YourDailyAnalysis describe as “strategic dualism.” Teng builds regulatory bridges, consolidates licenses and attempts to position the exchange as an institutional-grade platform. Yi He focuses on what made Binance irresistible to retail users in the first place: speed, scale, innovation and a product philosophy that grows the ecosystem – not just the exchange.
The political dimension, however, is impossible to ignore. Trump’s pardon of CZ radically shifted Binance’s legal trajectory. Officially, it closes the chapter on Zhao’s criminal exposure. Unofficially, it anchors Binance inside a political landscape where crypto businesses risk becoming instruments of partisan agendas. The situation is further complicated by a roughly $2 billion investment made in 2025 by the Middle Eastern fund MGX through USD1 – a stablecoin linked to Trump’s own circle. To critics, that overlap raises red flags about political favoritism. To Binance, it provides breathing room – but breathing room that could disappear as fast as it appeared.
Operationally, though, Binance is entering a consolidation phase. Institutional services are being redesigned, BNB Chain is receiving new investment through YZi Labs, and the venture arm is more formally integrated into the company’s strategic framework. This suggests that Binance will keep deepening its liquidity centers around its own ecosystem and tightening the integration between trading products, infrastructure and Web3 applications.
But the question remains: how durable is this architecture? At YourDailyAnalysis, our view is that Binance’s greatest strength remains its greatest vulnerability. A massive user base nearing 300 million, an omnipresent token ecosystem, and a sprawling web of funds, applications and networks create extraordinary growth potential – and systemic exposure. Yi He’s appointment does not reduce that exposure; it simply clarifies who is responsible for guiding the company through it.
For everyday users, the shift appears moderately positive. Liquidity is stable, products continue to expand, and the risk of chaotic disruption following CZ’s departure has materially diminished. For investors in ecosystem assets, particularly BNB, the new governance structure reinforces long-term support for the network economy. But for those evaluating long-horizon risk, one conclusion remains unchanged: Binance’s fate is deeply intertwined with political shifts, far more than the company would prefer to admit.
In closing, we at Your Daily Analysis note that this restructuring makes Binance more legible, but not necessarily more predictable. It formalizes the influence of those who have always shaped the company’s direction, while attempting to frame that influence within a maturing regulatory landscape. The exchange is refining its governance, tightening internal processes, and betting on a dual-CEO model as a stabilizing force. Whether that bet pays off will depend not only on Yi He and Richard Teng, but on the crypto industry’s ability to navigate an era in which politics, regulation and innovation are no longer parallel storylines – but a single, converging one.
