BNB Chain has appointed Thomas Chen as Chief Business Officer, a newly created leadership position focused on revenue strategy, institutional partnerships, and long-term value accrual for the ecosystem.
The appointment reflects accelerating adoption of blockchain infrastructure by traditional finance participants. Banks, asset managers, and payment processors have moved beyond pilot programs in 2026, issuing tokenized deposits and money market funds while building settlement infrastructure on public blockchains. Stablecoins settled $7.2 trillion in February 2026, surpassing the U.S. ACH network for the first time.
BNB Chain is positioned as a major venue for this activity. The blockchain ranks second globally for real-world asset tokenization with over $5.6 billion in total value locked and leads all networks with 15 million monthly active stablecoin addresses.
Chen's Responsibilities
Chen will oversee four key areas:
- Institutional and capital markets: attracting asset managers, banks, custodians, and real-world asset issuers with compliance infrastructure for regulated institutions
- Stablecoins and settlement: developing issuer partnerships and cross-border payment rails
- Trading and liquidity: engaging market makers and exchanges to deepen market quality
- Ecosystem and distribution: connecting protocols and wallets to infrastructure partners
Background
Chen joins from Function, a Bitcoin yield protocol that scaled to $1.6 billion in total value locked, where he served as Chief Executive Officer. Previously, he was Managing Director and Global Head of Sales at BitGo, where he grew assets under custody to over $100 billion. His career spans 15 years, with more than seven years building commercial teams across digital asset infrastructure for both traditional finance and decentralized finance institutions.
