Author: Jeff John Roberts, Fortune Magazine

Translation: Saoirse, Foresight News

In the 1980s, when He Yi was still a little girl, she had to walk to the well to fetch water, and her family sometimes relied on kerosene lamps for lighting. The situation today is vastly different: as the co-founder and executive of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, she holds about 10% of the shares, with a net worth in the billions, and has millions of fans in China. Yet, her life journey has never been smooth.

Binance's other co-founder, Zhao Changpeng, is known for his flamboyant style and was imprisoned in the U.S. last year due to a $4 billion plea agreement. This was a severe blow to Binance and a double whammy for He Yi—Zhao not only served as the company's CEO but was also the father of her young child.

Now that the storm has passed, Zhao has completed his sentence, and although Binance has suffered enough damage to cripple most companies, it still maintains its position as the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. He Yi played a key role during this crisis, and after years of wielding power behind the scenes, she is stepping into the spotlight to lead Binance's operations more openly.

He Yi shared with Fortune her transformation from a poor village girl to a cryptocurrency billionaire, recounting the trials she faced during Binance's crisis year and her outlook on an industry that is rapidly reshaping the global financial landscape.

Unchanging Down-to-Earth Nature

Throughout her life and career, He Yi has overcome numerous obstacles—learning English was one of them. She only began studying the language around the age of 35, and it has been just four years. However, during a lengthy Zoom interview, she handled herself with ease, only needing a bit of translation assistance when explaining Chinese idioms or proverbs.

He Yi understands the power of communication. At Binance, she is known for her outstanding marketing and customer service skills, which helped the exchange rise to the top tier globally in less than a year. To this day, she insists on listening to user feedback on platforms like Telegram, X, and WeChat, and requires her entire team to do the same. Her well-known rule is that all new employees at Binance must first spend several weeks training on the front lines of customer service.

He Yi recounted a recent incident: a college student mistakenly transferred $500 worth of cryptocurrency to the wrong wallet. Such mistakes are common and usually mean the funds are lost forever. But He Yi took the time to track it down and ultimately recovered the misdirected funds. She remembers the student telling her, "This amount is small for you, but it's everything for me."

He Yi can empathize with such stories due to her own experiences. Growing up in a poor village in Sichuan, she lost her father at the age of nine and spent long hours selling drinks outside a supermarket at sixteen. Although she later got into university (she recalls the joy of walking into a library for the first time with a smile) and even worked as a television host, her humble beginnings have always allowed her to understand the situation of many ordinary users of Binance.

Her story is reminiscent of Jennifer Lopez's "Jenny From the Block." The protagonist maintains her down-to-earth nature even after achieving success, a narrative that is popular in the U.S.

However, Eowyn Chen, CEO of Trust Wallet (formerly of Binance), stated that this approach does not work in China: "Chinese people are not likely to cheer for underdogs; instead, they prefer to mock those who 'climb too high.'" Eowyn Chen noted that He Yi often becomes a target for articles and social media attacks, but her response is to turn these negative comments back on the attackers.

"She would say to those people, 'Yes, I came from a poor background, but I still made a name for myself. Why can't you?'"

Bloomberg has referred to He Yi as "the most powerful woman in cryptocurrency." Through her intelligence, determination, and decisiveness, she has climbed to the top of the blockchain industry. These qualities are strikingly similar to those of her co-founder and partner.

Building the Binance Empire Together

When Zhao Changpeng founded Binance in 2017, he had already crafted a distinct public persona as "CZ." He built the "CZ myth" through bold risks (like selling his Shanghai apartment to buy Bitcoin in 2014) and actively engaging with the cryptocurrency Twitter community.

Zhao invited He Yi to join Binance during its early days, but it was He Yi who had extended the olive branch years earlier. In 2014, she persuaded Zhao to join OKCoin (now renamed OKX) as its Chief Technology Officer. This duo not only shared a passion for cryptocurrency but also had many common traits. Like He Yi, Zhao had studied in a rural school without heating; later, when his father immigrated to Canada, he worked part-time at Chevron and McDonald's during high school, earning minimum wage. In response to those who mocked his background, Zhao has always been outspoken, even sharing memes of himself in a McDonald's uniform to poke fun at himself.

The two fell in love while working at OKCoin and gained experience in operating a large cryptocurrency business. Today, this couple, who have not entered into marriage but maintain a close relationship, are both parents raising children together and business partners working closely. According to The Wall Street Journal, He Yi and Zhao Changpeng jointly own the family office YZi Labs, which transformed from Binance's venture capital department, and she holds at least 10% of the shares in Binance's parent company.

When asked about her relationship with Zhao, He Yi declined to comment publicly, providing only a written statement: "My personal life and professional identity are completely independent. People always get caught up in my private life and overlook my achievements and capabilities as a co-founder." She also mentioned that Binance has reached 280 million users.

Regardless of their personal relationship, their collaboration at work is highly efficient. He Yi's role at Binance is roughly equivalent to Sheryl Sandberg's position at Facebook—this executive not only helped Facebook grow during its early days but also provided steady oversight for the somewhat inexperienced CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the time.

In practice, Zhao plays the role of Binance's influential leader and product visionary, while He Yi injects explosive growth into the platform through aggressive promotional strategies, including car giveaways. Her strategies are well-received not only in overseas Chinese communities but also domestically—despite the nominal ban on cryptocurrency in mainland China, it still has a large audience, partly because it serves as an easily transferable asset that can evade government capital controls.

A Binance employee, who requested anonymity due to discussions about company executives, described He Yi as a demanding boss who always supports her employees and is willing to speak up for those around her. When discussing Binance's daily operations, He Yi mentioned that the company's core mission is "founder culture," a concept from the tech world that refers to companies that maintain the original drive of their startup phase.

For Binance, a significant characteristic of its early development was its flexible approach to regulatory issues, often shifting between different countries when faced with government scrutiny. While this strategy fueled Binance's explosive growth, it also became a critical vulnerability—this very risk ultimately led to the loss of its most core founder.

After CZ, He Yi Takes the Helm

By early 2023, Binance's room for survival was becoming increasingly constrained. The previous year, the FTX exchange, owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, collapsed, prompting the Biden administration to intensify its crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry, targeting the industry leader, Binance. For years, Binance's legal team had been negotiating with the Department of Justice over various allegations, and it finally reached a point where an agreement was necessary.

In September 2023, the Department of Justice announced a significant settlement agreement: Binance would pay a $4.3 billion fine (the highest of its kind in corporate history), Zhao Changpeng would resign as CEO, and he would admit to inadequate anti-money laundering measures. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters cited anonymous sources stating that the Department of Justice had also requested He Yi's departure. (A Binance spokesperson stated, "The plea agreement with U.S. regulators is a matter of public record.")

Despite the severe blow to its finances and leadership, two years later, under the leadership of Zhao's successor Richard Teng, Binance remains firmly in the top position as the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. This former senior regulatory official from Singapore has pushed through a series of compliance measures, shaping a new image for the company as it "moves away from its early rough-and-tumble model." In January 2025, Binance took another key step: it introduced a formal board structure for the first time, consisting of seven members, including Teng, three of whom are independent directors.

Nevertheless, a former Binance employee revealed to Fortune that the core of power within the company has remained unchanged, still firmly held by Zhao Changpeng, He Yi, and two other early executives, Roger Wang and Sonny Zhou. This individual, who requested anonymity for candidness, added that He Yi has final decision-making authority over all personnel matters, and her voice is also the most critical in decisions related to customer experience. However, a Binance spokesperson stated that this assertion is not accurate, and the company's culture has always encouraged employees to have a high degree of autonomy.

Meanwhile, a venture capital firm founder described Binance as a company managed with an "iron fist." Despite facing new legal constraints and the challenges of operating a vast global business, there are no signs of its market-leading position wavering. This assessment seems to be corroborated by the latest data from CoinGecko: even with new competitors emerging, Binance still holds the largest share of trading activity, accounting for 39% of the trading volume in centralized exchanges in June.

For He Yi, Binance's continued leadership is both a testament to her "customer-first" strategy and a reflection of the founders' dedicated investment in cryptocurrency. In her view, this technology has transformative power, comparable to the disruption that the birth of the internet brought to traditional media and television.

He Yi predicts that cryptocurrency will accelerate its penetration into the traditional financial system through stablecoins and other blockchain technologies; in the next five to ten years, these two fields will achieve full integration.

For her personally, the proliferation of cryptocurrency feels like another technological revolution she has experienced firsthand—just like moving from a childhood without water and electricity to where she is today.

As for the trials she has faced along the way, He Yi quoted a line from Xi Murong: "Since we said it would be good, we won't talk about the pain."

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