Kraken’s new CEO declines to list crypto assets as securities

The newest head of one of the more controversial crypto exchanges is apparently not backing down from the company’s reputation for making controversial, anti-regulatory statements.

Incoming CEO of the often controversial crypto exchange Kraken, Dave Ripley narrated Reuters on Wednesday that he does not plan to delist any tokens that have been cited as securities by the Securities and Exchange Commission or register with the SEC at all.

The thing is, the SEC is allegedly in the middle investigating other crypto exchange Coinbase over exactly those problems. Although the agency has not made any formal announcement about the investigation into whether the exchange failed to list securities, it has filed securities fraud charges against a former project manager at the company.

The SEC said the project manager had purchased 25 types of cryptoassets, calling nine of those securities. Coinbase also regularly has denied it offers securities on its platform. Coinbase’s Legal Officer Paul Grewal has claimed “Coinbase has a rigorous process to analyze and review each digital asset before it is made available on our exchange – a process that the SEC itself has reviewed.” Coinbase lists over 150 different tokens.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said repeatedly that most crypto-tokens fall under his domain as securities. It leaves out some of the biggest coins like bitcoin and ether, although since the merger and transition to Proof of Stake, the situation surrounding the latter cryptocurrency is now up in the air. That makes Ripley’s comments sound all the more like a total determination to push back against intrusive regulation.

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The once-San Francisco-based Kraken announced its CEO switch on Wednesday, saying COO Ripley would take over from Jesse Powell. Ripley steps into the shoes of a company that has 9 million customers among its trading platforms. The company also plans to launch its own NFT marketplace.

The SEC did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment. While Coinbase has had to act defensively against the SEC’s inquiries, Kraken appears to be taking the opposite approach, screaming “come at me bro” even though it’s allegedly investigated by the US Treasury Department for allegedly allowing Iranian users to use the platform. Of course, Kraken is not the only exchange accused of letting users from sanctioned nations into theirs platforms.

On his way out as Kraken’s leader, former CEO Powell said Protocol that he did not consider himself a “fantastic manager.” Considering how many times he was cited for creating a hostile work environment, that makes things easiery. He said instead that he thought of himself as an individual product. He often came off as a dudebro in interviews and in tweets as he grew increasingly controversial over his tenure for his reported misogyny and willingness to mix gender pronouns with “who can refer to another person as the N-word.”

Powell once tweeted “People get triggered by everything and cannot follow the basic rules of honest debate. Back to dictatorship.” In response to further condemnation, Powell said so “I don’t know what to say to people who feel they deserve some kind of workplace where they don’t have to follow guidelines. If it goes off like authoritarian or whatever, you know, that’s fine.”

Based on his statements, Powell now seems more interested in industry advocates to fight back intervention in industry regulation.