CoinMarketCap founding members resign, including interim CEO Carylyne Chan and four other top executives

CoinMarketCap, the most popular cryptocurrency price website, has been embroiled in controversy since its acquisition by Binance, unable to shake off rumors of favoritism towards Binance, including allegations of ranking exchanges based on website traffic and categorizing Binance's platform token BNB as a DeFi asset. On the evening of the 31st, according to a report by The Block, Carylyne Chan, the interim CEO and founding member, has resigned along with four other senior executives.

Who Resigned?

Among the five who resigned, Carylyne Chan, who joined in June 2018 and held positions such as Vice President of Marketing, Chief Strategy Officer, and interim CEO, Spencer Yang, Vice President of Operations, and Jeremy Seow, Vice President of Products who joined in June 2019, along with Matthew Lippl, the Head of Design who joined in 2018, and Jared Chin, the Project Lead.

Binance to Appoint Internal Employees as Successors

According to The Block's interview with Carylyne Chan, she stated that she and the other five members resigned but declined to comment on any relation to Binance. In her blog post, Chan only highlighted her achievements at the company without specifying the reasons for her resignation.

Reports suggest that Binance has agreed to the resignations of the five individuals and will appoint internal employees as successors. Both companies have declined to comment on this news, and previously, Binance has reiterated that CoinMarketCap operates independently.

A statement in the past read, "CoinMarketCap has maintained its independence from external stakeholders since its inception and will continue to operate as an independent business entity. While Binance cryptocurrency exchange and its token BNB are listed on CoinMarketCap, CoinMarketCap and Binance are independent entities that maintain strict policies of independence: Binance has no influence on CoinMarketCap rankings, and CoinMarketCap has no impact on Binance operations."

Recap of CoinMarketCap Acquisition

In April this year, Binance acquired the most widely used cryptocurrency price data website, CoinMarketCap. Following the rumored acquisition for up to $400 million, its founder Brandon Chez announced his retirement and Carylyne Chan took on the role of interim CEO.

Competitor CoinGecko Still Ahead

CoinMarketCap has faced ongoing controversies and has lagged behind during the DeFi boom. Its listing speed for various community-discussed tokens has been slow, and its data presentation is relatively basic. In contrast, competitor CoinGecko has been more responsive, with real-time price updates and more detailed methodologies and data presentation for various types of tokens. However, user habits may still pose a challenge, as CoinGecko has seen an increase in traffic this year but still lags significantly behind CoinMarketCap.

According to research, in terms of traffic from different countries, Taiwan stands out with over 50% of its traffic coming from CoinGecko.