Binance Chief Financial Officer Kaiser Ng has announced his departure from the exchange after a five-year tenure, outlining plans to build his own ventures at the intersection of artificial intelligence and crypto tokenization. Ng detailed his exit and entrepreneurial plans in comments posted on X on Nov. 8, one day after public reports of the leadership change emerged on Nov. 7. His departure statement reflected on a decade working in digital asset exchanges.

"After five years as CFO of Binance, have decided to go build something of my own," Ng stated.

The announcement followed Binance's Oct. 29 hack, in which about $6.3 billion in digital assets was stolen. Co-CEO Yi He said the transition plan had been implemented over the preceding six months, placing the start of the plan before the attack — a timeline that distinguishes the planned succession from the hack's immediate aftermath. Justin Yek, formerly vice president of finance at payments company Airwallex, will succeed Ng as the exchange's finance chief.

In his farewell remarks, Ng thanked the exchange's leadership, employees, regulators, banking partners, advisers, and auditors. Among those he acknowledged was MGX, the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm focused on AI and advanced technology, which acquired a minority stake in Binance through a $2 billion investment in March 2025 — a focus that intersects with Ng's own AI ambitions.

Sports, Gold, and Robotics Shape His Founder Plans

Ng's next chapter features a range of projects, with interests spanning basketball and music to graphics processing units, robotics, gold, and collectibles. He connected those ambitions to real-world asset tokenization — the practice of representing assets such as gold or collectibles as blockchain-based tokens — and invited prospective team members to contact him.

"Bringing these real-world assets onto the blockchain through tokenization is a massive opportunity for the industry, and a big unlock for everyone," Ng stated.

That outlook overlapped with Richard Teng's tokenization assessment, shared in May, which highlighted regulation, institutional access, adoption, and settlement infrastructure. Teng said the following 12 to 18 months could prove defining for the sector, with his assessment emphasizing the systems connecting tokenized assets with regulated capital markets — a period that now includes Ng's first months as a founder.

Personal interests also shaped Ng's invitation to collaborators, including his enthusiasm for basketball star Kobe Bryant. A statue of Bryant in his office had motivated him through late nights, he recalled.

"Moving from the CFO's chair to the founder's is a leap, and I take it with humility," Ng stated.

Binance Builds Out Tokenized Securities and AI Tools

Traditional finance assets and AI-powered interfaces featured in Ng's account of Binance's continued development. The exchange's Bstocks conversion program gives eligible users a way to convert supported third-party tokenized securities into certificates backed by the underlying securities. These certificates provide financial exposure without direct ownership of the underlying shares, with access and redemption subject to restrictions and product terms.

Another distribution channel opened when Ondo Global Markets joined Binance Alpha in February. Binance Alpha is a platform within the exchange's ecosystem providing access to selected digital assets, including tokenized securities. The integration offered eligible users outside the United States economic exposure to securities including Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla.

The company's March rollout of seven AI agent skills connected automated agents with market information, trading execution, and security analytics. Read together, the Bstocks program, the Ondo integration, and the AI agent rollout trace the same tokenization-and-AI convergence Ng cited in announcing his move.

Looking ahead to his own businesses, Ng described the move as an opportunity to contribute in both fields.

"I deeply believe it is where I can make a greater contribution to AI and Web3," he stated.

For now, the developments to watch are Yek's handover into the finance chief role and the formation of Ng's founding team.