Key Takeaways
- CoinMarketCap’s Interim CEO along with four other key team members have left the company
- Binance will reportedly appoint its own employees to CoinMarketCap’s leadership positions
- This could result in a conflict of interest, especially given CoinMarketCap’s earlier bias toward Binance
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Several executives have left CoinMarketCap, a popular cryptocurrency market aggregator. The staff changeover comes just months after an acquisition by Binance.
Five Employees Leave CoinMarketCap
The departing team members personally revealed the news to The Block on Monday, Aug. 31. Five employees have left the team:
- Carylyne Chan, Interim CEO
- Spencer Yang, VP of operations
- Jeremy Seow, VP of products
- Matthew Lippl, head of design and growth
- Jared Chin, project lead and head of events.
The Block’s report is ambiguous as to whether the employees resigned or whether Binance dismissed them. Binance reportedly plans to place its own employees on CoinMarketCap’s team, but neither company has announced any official transfers. Chan has confirmed her departure on her own blog but has not commented on who will replace her as CEO.
Today is my last day @CoinMarketCap. Thank you to all of you in the #crypto community who have been my peers and friends in the last 2.5 years! I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I’m looking forward to what’s next! See my full post here: https://t.co/XJ2lPpV6UC
— Carylyne Chan (@carylyne) August 31, 2020
Why It Matters
The fact that Binance owns both a leading exchange and market aggregator is a conflict of interest. This has already caused one controversy: CoinMarketCap introduced a metric that elevated Binance to the top of its rankings in June. Greater involvement from Binance employees could result in a similar pro-Binance bias.
That said, CoinMarketCap has always been fairly controversial, even prior to Binance’s acquisition. The anonymity of CoinMarketCap’s original CEO, Brandon Chez, similarly raised…
