BNB Chain named Thomas Chen its chief business officer on September 28, 20261. The role is new. It covers revenue strategy and what the announcement called "long-term value accrual for the BNB Chain ecosystem," a mandate that spans banks, exchanges and the builders who link them to the network. Chen brings 15 years in the field as of September 2026, the announcement said, including more than seven years in digital asset work. TronWeekly reported on September 28, 2026, that BNB Chain's stablecoins had topped $10 billion2.
45 executive hires on the record in 2026 so far
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2026: 45
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 39 |
| 2025 | 59 |
| 2026 | 45 |
Trading Venues & Brokerage led executive hires in 2026, with eight
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified in 2026, by the sector of the company
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 8 |
| Institutional Custody & Asset Management | 5 |
| Layer 1s & Infrastructure | 5 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 4 |
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 2 |
| Stablecoins & Payments | 1 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 1 |
| Security & Incident Response | 1 |
The move
Chen laid out his own priorities in a statement BNB Chain published with the announcement. “My focus is making sure that activity settles here - more volume, deeper markets, and the institutional infrastructure serious capital requires before it moves onchain,” he said1. BNB Chain's post split his mandate into four areas. They are institutions and capital markets, stablecoins and settlement, trading and liquidity, and ecosystem and distribution. On the first area, the post named who Chen would work with: "asset managers, banks, custodians, and real-world asset issuers".
Chen's prior role put him at the head of a Bitcoin-focused protocol. He joined BNB Chain “from Function, a Bitcoin yield protocol that scaled to $1.6 billion in total value locked, where he served as CEO,” the announcement said1. Before Function, Chen held a sales post at BitGo, where he “grew assets under custody to more than $100 billion and helped set the company's course toward an IPO,” BNB Chain's post said.
Before and after at BNB Chain
BNB Chain's announcement called the post new. TronWeekly's report placed the hire against a specific gap: "Ethereum has over 60% of tokenized RWA value," the outlet reported, while "institutional capital has not followed" the retail growth BNB Chain had already built on low fees and exchange integrations2. BNB Chain's announcement said Chen would apply his BitGo and Function background “to BNB Chain's focus on bringing more stablecoin issuers, real-world asset platforms, and institutional capital onto the network”1.
What to watch
BNB Chain's announcement named three areas for Chen's team to build first: custody integrations, stablecoin issuer partnerships and real-world asset products1. TronWeekly's report pointed to a similar test from the outside. The outlet named "custody integrations with exchanges/trading apps" and "live tokenised treasury products" as the metrics that would show whether Chen's hire changes BNB Chain's institutional standing2. One question sits ahead of both sources. Does stablecoin issuance above $10 billion turn into the institutional volume Ethereum and Solana have already drawn, in the months after September 28, 2026?
Sources
- BNB Chain, "Thomas Chen Joins BNB Chain as Chief Business Officer," September 28, 2026, https://www.bnbchain.org/en/blog/thomas-chen-joins-bnb-chain-as-chief-business-officer
- Ananthyka J, "BNB Chain Names New CBO as $10B Stablecoins Drive Growth," TronWeekly, September 28, 2026, https://www.tronweekly.com/bnb-chain-names-new-cbo-as-10b-stablecoins/