Key Takeaways
- Jesse Powell is leaving his role as Kraken’s CEO, a position he has held since it was founded in 2011.
- He will be replaced by Kraken’s COO, Dave Ripley, who has been part of the company for six years.
- Powell will remain involved in Kraken and serve as chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Share this article
Jesse Powell will step down from his role as CEO at major cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
Jesse Powell is resigning.
According to a statement From Kraken, Powell will leave his role as CEO to become chairman of the firm’s board of directors. As co-founder of Kraken, Powell has served as the company’s CEO since its founding in 2011.
Kraken’s current chief operating officer, Dave Ripley, will succeed Powell and become Kraken’s next CEO.
Ripley has worked with Kraken for the past six years. Powell said Ripley’s experience gives him “great confidence that he is the ideal successor.” Ripley added that, as CEO, he aims to “accelerate cryptocurrency adoption” by expanding Kraken’s product portfolio.
Meanwhile, Powell will remain involved in the company in other ways. He says he will spend time on Kraken’s “product, user experience and broader industry support.”
Powell has been a vocal advocate for the free use of cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, he criticized the Canadian government’s efforts to seize cryptocurrency funds belonging to protesters. He also refused to freeze Russian crypto accounts outside the scope of the ban.
This summer, he criticized the ban on Tornado Cash, arguing that coin mixers have legitimate uses and that individuals have a right to privacy.
Powell has also made controversial statements on various social and political issues. inside JuneHe encouraged several leftist workers to leave the company.
The dispute does not appear to have caused Powell to resign, as he has been in the process of resigning for over a year.
With or without Powell at the helm, Kraken is one of the largest crypto exchanges. It currently has a valuation of $11 billion and a daily trading volume of $665 million.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH and other cryptocurrencies.
