Kraken founder Jesse Powell has stepped down as CEO, with the company's COO David Ripley now taking over Kraken.

Reason Is Politically Complicated

It is believed that due to Mr. Jesse Powell's bigotry, Kraken did not have a good relationship with the US government, which resulted in American agencies putting pressure on Kraken.

The Russia Example - For not supporting sanctions on Russia, Mr. Powell even went so far as to say that if sanctions are imposed on any country because it has attacked another country, then sanctions should be imposed on America first. No one else dared to show such strictness.

Tornado Crash Example - On August 8, 2022, the US banned the Ethereum smart-contract mixer Tornado Cash for supporting the North Korean hacker group Lazarus. Jesse opposed that ban, calling it unconstitutional. Due to this, Jesse's popularity was lost among hacking victims.

Violation of Sanctions on Iran and others

In July, the United States was on Kraken. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had started its investigation, accusing it of providing services to citizens of banned countries like Iran, Syria, and Cuba.

Even Twitter is afraid of Jesse

Twitter also avoids giving Jesse full recognition. Even though Twitter can verify the fake scam account, it does not verify the real account of Jesse Powell.

Thoughts

Jesse is not leaving Kraken, he will become the chairman of the company. For the time being, this development of Kraken is like adopting the middle path in attemp to cool the burning issuies and keep the company and founder safe.

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