Binance Loses Head of Product Amid String of Departures

Another executive has resigned from cryptocurrency giant Binance amid ongoing regulatory pressure.

Mayur Kamat, the company’s head of product, has stepped down, a spokesperson for Binance told PYMNTS Monday (Sept. 24).

“We are grateful to him for helping guide Binance through some of our most explosive growth, and we wish him the very best,” the spokesperson said.

Kamat’s departure places him at the end of a recent string of executive resignations at the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, with the company’s general counsel, head of investigations and chief strategy officer all leaving this year.

Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao has rejected the idea that this exodus is tied to the company’s ongoing battle with regulators. Binance was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission in June for allegedly committing a variety of securities law violations and is also the apparent target of a Department of Justice probe.

Both Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann and Compliance Officer Steven Christie have said their resignations were born out of a desire to spend time with family.

Binance has contested the SEC’s charges and last month sought court protection against requests from the agency it argued are “stunningly overbroad and unduly burdensome.”

In addition to the SEC case, Binance, Zhao and former Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim are also facing a lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which alleged the company violated the Commodity Exchange Act and related regulations.

The CFTC’s suit, filed in March, called Binance an “illegal” exchange with a “sham” compliance program. Binance said the CFTC case has no standing, as its holding company is located in the Cayman Islands, and Zhao is a Canadian citizen.

The company’s troubles — which include its shuttering of the Binance Connect platform — are emblematic of the ongoing “identity crisis” facing the cryptocurrency industry.

“Zhao has repeatedly dismissed his enterprise’s ongoing legal woes as ‘FUD,’ or fear, uncertainty and doubt, even going so far as to tweet the number 4 in reference to what he sees as unnecessary FUD,” PYMNTS reported last month. “For an industry whose early and rapid growth was aided by a haze of regulatory uncertainty, crypto’s future — particularly within the U.S. — remains unclear as the newness wears off.”

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