Jesse Powell – the man who brought popular digital currency exchange Kraken to life – is stepping down from his post with the company.
Kraken CEO to Remain Onboard as the Chairman
Powell will no longer serve as the chief executive of the firm, according to recent news reports. He will be replaced by the chief operating officer Dave Ripley, who first joined Kraken in the year 2016. The transition will occur gradually over the next few months and Mr. Powell will remain with the company as the chairman.
Doesn’t this sound familiar? If it doesn’t, you haven’t been reading much about Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, which have also been going through huge transitions due to bitcoin. Saylor has served as the CEO of the software giant for the last 33 years, but the fact remains that his bitcoin decisions have brought giants hordes of debt onto the firm’s shoulders, and he’s now stepping down from that post to serve as the executive chairman, where he’ll continue to be attached to the world’s number one digital currency by market cap.
But while Saylor’s stepping down has to do with bitcoin and the decisions he’s made around it, Powell’s stepping down centers more on employee complaints regarding his behavior. It has been suggested that problems started when Powell began posting what have been referred to as “inflammatory” messages about subjects ranging from gender to race on the company’s Slack profile. Those who disagreed with what he was stating were urged to exit the company, and some of those employees did.
In addition to these messages, Kraken is also allegedly facing an investigation from the Treasury Department, which claims that the company violated U.S. sanctions in various ways. The transition from Mr. Ripley to the top and Jesse Powell to the role of chairman will allow Mr. Powell to focus on the company’s “products, user experience, and broader industry advocacy” the company explained in a statement.
At the time of writing, bitcoin is experiencing some of its most bearish conditions. Following another recent Fed rate hike, the currency fell into the $18,000 per unit range, and it has thus far lost about $50,000 from its recent all-time high of $68,000, which was achieved in November of last year. Despite the present state of the digital currency, Powell emerged to let everyone know that discounting bitcoin was a huge mistake, and he expressed his confidence in the currency’s ability to return to form.
The Company Is the “Runner Up”
He stated:
I bought bitcoin again at $18,000. I’m happy to ride it back up.
Founded in 2011, Kraken – at one point – was the largest and most powerful digital currency exchange stationed in the United States, though per data from Coin Market Cap, the company was overtaken by Coinbase, and Kraken has fallen to second place.
