The company’s former chief operating officer, Dave Ripley, will take on the role of CEO after hiring a new COO.
The news follows last week’s shock announcement that Kraken founder Jesse Powell will be stepping down after more than a decade at the helm.
Ripley also stated that the exchange has no intention of delisting any tokens that the SEC has unofficially deemed securities, according to Reuters. Its decision not to play ball with the US regulator keeps the company on track with its libertarian ideals.
Ripley will take over at a turbulent time, as crypto markets have fallen nearly 70% from their all-time highs and US regulators are tightening the screws.
They are not values
He added that the long list of coins listed on Kraken are not securities, despite what SEC Chairman Gary Gensler claims. The exchange offers 203 coins and tokens and 634 pairs, according to CoinGecko.
They would only consider registration if another witness comes along “that becomes interesting and also simultaneously becomes security,” according to Ripley. A security is defined as an “investment contract” similar to a stock or shares, while crypto assets behave more like commodities.
The SEC is currently investigating leading exchange Coinbase for similar issues related to the exchange of securities.
He said there was “no evidence of any securities that we are interested in listing” before confirming that the company is looking for opportunities in the M&A sector.
Kraken has largely survived the crypto rout and contagion that led to multiple bankruptcies for the likes of Celsius and Voyager Digital, among others. It is considering acquisitions that will enhance its product portfolio, which includes a planned non-fungible token (NFT) market and banking services for institutional clients.
Kraken is also under investigation for sanctions violations because it allowed Iranian users to access the platform.
9 million users
Kraken’s 24-hour volume is currently around $275 million, according to CoinGecko. This places it outside the top 30 centralized exchanges by daily trading volume, but it has a customer base of nine million. The BTC/USD pair is the most active, with around 14% of the total volume.
Crypto markets are down during the Asian trading session on Monday morning, after losing just under 1% on the day, with total market capitalization falling to $966 billion (on CoinGecko).
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