Carylyne Chan, CoinMarketCap's interim chief executive officer, left the company on Aug. 30, 2020, writing on her personal blog that she was "leaving CoinMarketCap today"1. CoinDesk reported on Aug. 31, 2020, the next day, that four other top executives, Spencer Yang, Jeremy Seow, Jared Chin and Matthew Lippl, departed the data site in the same week2. Binance had purchased CoinMarketCap for an undisclosed sum in April 2020, and founder Brandon Chez left soon after that sale, CoinDesk reported, leaving Chan as interim chief.
Nine CEO exits on the record in 2020
CEO exits CryptoLately has verified, by year
- 2020: 9
- 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
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 |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 3 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 7 |
| 2020 | 9 |
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 11 |
| 2024 | 20 |
Trading Venues & Brokerage led CEO exits in 2020, with three
CEO exits CryptoLately has verified in 2020, by the sector of the company
- Wallets & Consumer Apps: 1
- Trading Venues & Brokerage, Bitcoin & Mining
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 | 3 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 1 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 1 |
The departure
Chan framed her exit as a step toward other work rather than a break with the company. “I'm not leaving with a heavy hearted, but rather optimism as I focus on other entrepreneurial endeavors,” she wrote1. She listed what she said CoinMarketCap had built during her tenure: a Liquidity metric and a Confidence indicator meant to address data on trading volume, a Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance the company co-founded, and crypto indices placed on Nasdaq, Bloomberg and Refinitiv. “For me, CoinMarketCap had to stand for these values: integrity, transparency, non-censorship and accountability,” Chan wrote. “And this applied to every part of our business, from the data to our team.”
CoinDesk's report put the five departures in a different frame, naming them a mass exit rather than five separate choices. “Five of CoinMarketCap's (CMC) top executives, including the interim CEO, have left the cryptocurrency-ranking website only months after the firm's purchase by Binance,” the outlet wrote2. CoinDesk added that “Binance plans to replace the all five with in-house staff but says CMC will maintain operational independence”.
Before and after the exodus
Chan had joined CoinMarketCap in January 2018, working directly with founder Brandon Chez before his own departure left her as interim chief12. Her blog post said the company lacked a logo until May 2018 when she arrived, and that she spent her tenure building what she called the brand's values into its product and team. After Aug. 30, 2020, Binance controlled the staffing of a site its executives said would remain operationally independent.
What came next
CoinMarketCap kept operating under Binance's ownership for years after Chan's exit. Leadership has turned over since then too. CoinMarketCap announced around Sept. 28, 2026, that David Salamon, until then its Chief Product Officer, had become chief executive officer. He succeeded an executive the announcement called Rush, who had led the company for five years3. “David has worked side by side with me on nearly every major decision at CMC over the past few years, and he has built a strong product team along the way,” the outgoing chief executive said. The 2026 post skipped any mention of Chan or the August 2020 departures. CoinDesk's five-person exodus from 2020 became one entry in a much longer chain of changes at the top of the site.
Sources
- Carylyne Chan, "CoinMarketCap CEO Departs Today," Carylyne Chan (personal blog), Aug. 30, 2020, https://carylyne.com/posts/coinmarketcap-ceo-departs-today
- Danny Nelson, "Five CoinMarketCap Executives Depart Binance-Owned Firm," CoinDesk, Aug. 31, 2020, https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/08/31/five-coinmarketcap-executives-depart-binance-owned-firm
- CoinMarketCap, "CoinMarketCap Names David Salamon Chief Executive Officer," CoinMarketCap, Sept. 28, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMioAFBVV95cUxPR2c4Wk9RdkZYTHJlN2djUFkxYjNkMHFUZWhCRWlCT0cyUzhFTDBIS3B4Vm1LWGdsd0g1OUVpdkJrdFBuQndHZVh0WTF1eDI4S2dNaXplcFhDamF3cjVZVkhiTkFYb2I2SzVBY2JNV2ZYWUhUSFdqLVM3MllLNXlOSkhha2x6WmNyQ045X3RydFRjQTV2TU1ZY0lvaWZ1SGJ1