Today in crypto: Binance has appointed co-founder Yi He as co-CEO alongside Richard Teng, the United Kingdom passed a law clarifying how property rights apply to crypto, and Eric Trump’s American Bitcoin stock has plummeted.
Binance names co-founder Yi He co-CEO alongside Richard Teng
Binance appointed co-founder Yi He as co-CEO, elevating one of its earliest architects to a formal leadership role alongside chief executive Richard Teng.
In a Wednesday announcement on stage at Binance Blockchain Week, Teng said co-founder Yi He had been appointed co-CEO. Teng said He “has been an integral part of the executive leadership team since the launch of Binance,” calling the appointment “a natural progression.”
Teng added that He, Binance’s chief marketing officer before her appointment as co-CEO, is crucial in expanding Binance’s community and driving product innovation. Yi He said that sharing the CEO role with Teng will leverage two very different perspectives, with Teng bringing his experience in regulated financial markets.
Yi He is a crypto native who co-founded Binance in 2017 alongside Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
UK takes “massive step forward” in property laws for crypto
A UK bill that clarifies that digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, are property was given royal assent and passed into law on Tuesday, which advocates say will better protect crypto users.
King Charles gave his approval to the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill, which clarifies that “a thing that is digital or electronic in nature” isn’t outside the realm of personal property rights just because it doesn’t fit under the law’s two categories of personal property, covering tangible and intangible goods.
UK common law established that digital assets are property, but the bill sought to codify a recommendation made by the Law Commission of England and Wales in 2024 that crypto be categorized as a new form of personal property for clarity.
Freddie New, policy chief at advocacy group Bitcoin Policy UK, said that the bill “becoming law is a massive step forward for Bitcoin in the United Kingdom and for everyone who holds and uses it here.”
The advocacy group CryptoUK said the law “gives digital assets a much clearer legal footing” for things like proving ownership and recovering stolen assets. It added that the law gives “greater clarity and protection for consumers and investors” and gives crypto holders “the same confidence and certainty they expect with other forms of property.”
American Bitcoin stock tumbles 50% as BTC proxy trade unravels
Shares of American Bitcoin Corp (ABTC), the Bitcoin-mining and treasury company headed by Eric Trump, plunged on Tuesday as difficult market conditions continued to pressure crypto-linked equities.
ABTC, which debuted on the Nasdaq in early September following a reverse merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, lost more than half its value in early trading. The stock reached an intraday low of $1.75, representing a 51% decline on the day, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
The shares are now down roughly 78% from their post-listing high of $9.31 on Sept. 9, underscoring the broad unwinding across the digital-asset sector and its spillover into related equities.
While no single catalyst appeared to drive Tuesday’s steep sell-off, crypto-linked stocks have faced renewed volatility in recent weeks amid a broad retreat in digital assets and profit-taking across technology shares.
American Bitcoin’s business is closely tied to the price of Bitcoin, which has experienced one of its sharpest pullbacks in history since mid-October, falling from a peak near $126,000 to a November low of below $80,000.
