coindesk.com
Cryptocurrency power couple Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Yi He, the two co-founders of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, playfully adopted the aliases Homer and Marjorie (generally “Marge”) from The Simpsons when participating in company meetings or internal chat within the exchange and its subsidiaries.
As well as being business partners, Zhou, who is known as “CZ,” and Yi have reportedly been romantically involved for some years, having met at OKCoin (now OKX) back in 2014, at which time Yi recruited CZ as chief technical officer, before the pair went to found Binance in 2017.
While the cartoon aliases have a playful and fun side, they also point to the fact that both CZ and Yi He were omnipresent lurkers across the entire Binance ecosystem, including at BNB Chain meetings and subsidiaries like CoinMarketCap, a person familiar with the matter said.
The revelation that CZ and Yi went by the names Homer and Marge was first reported by Chinese-language tech news site HKET. Screenshots showing Yi in meetings using the name Marge were shared with CoinDesk, and a person close to CZ confirmed the former Binance CEO used the alias Homer.
Yi, who is now the co-CEO of Binance alongside its other chief Richard Teng, still uses the name Marge in meetings and chats, a person who previously worked with her at the firm told CoinDesk. The fact that the Simpsons cartoon characters are yellow is a reference to the corporate color of the exchange’s logo and marketing, the person said.
CZ resigned as the CEO of Binance in November 2023 after the U.S Department of Justice alleged he violated the Bank Secrecy Act. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024. In October 2025, the ex-Binace CEO was given a presidential pardon by President Donald Trump.
According to Forbes, Zhao is the richest Canadian and the 17th-richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $111.1 billion as of April 2026.
Up until recently, Yi maintained a relatively low profile at Binance, having served as the firm’s chief marketing officer.
In August 2022, Yi became the head of YZi Labs (formerly known as Binance Labs), a venture capital firm and family office associated with Zhao that invests in Web3, artificial intelligence and biotechnology companies.
It didn’t take long for the rapacious crypto memecoin ecosystem to swoop on the news and create meme tokens in honor of the crypto power couple’s Simpsonian masquerade.