Karnsey’s incoming CEO says there's no plan to delist tokens

The incoming Chief Executive Officer Dave Ripley said on Thursday that the exchange Kraken has no plans to delist tokens the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has labeled as securities or to register with the agency as a market intermediary.

The platform, which has more than nine million clients, underscores the challenges the securities regulator is facing in its effort to rein in the industry, because of the stance of the San Francisco-based platform.

Kraken, which denied requests to block the digital wallet addresses of Russian users after the invasion of Ukraine, has long championed the libertarian values associated with cryptocurrencies. The CEO of the company has promised to stay the course on the company's culture.

Kraken announced on Wednesday that its often-controversial co-founder Jesse Powell will step down and that Ripley, Kraken's chief operating officer, will assume the CEO role after the firm hires a new COO.

Ripley will take over the Kraken helm at a time when the industry is facing a major rout, with bitcoins down nearly 60% this year, and also at a time when the fast-growing industry has been at odds with regulators like the SEC.

Ripley said that Kraken has no plans to remove the token from its exchange despite reports that the SEC is scrutinizing Coinbase for listing several tokens on its platform that were identified as securities in a July insider trading lawsuit.

Ripley said Kraken sees no reason to register with the SEC as an exchange because his company does not offer securities despite calls from SEC Chair Gary Gensler for platforms to register.

He said there aren't any tokens out there that are securities that we're interested in listing. There could be a new token that becomes interesting and also happens to be a security, and in that case we would potentially be interested in that path. In a summer when many players in the market like Celsius Network and Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy, and others like Coinbase announced layoffs, Kraken has managed to escape the market downturn, and is now eyeing opportunities.

There are opportunities for M&A in this environment, and maybe if it's going through a bankruptcy process, that's a possibility for us to consider for sure, said Ripley, adding that the company has not made any moves yet.

He said that Kraken would consider acquisitions that bolster its product and tech portfolio, particularly as the exchange looks to broaden its offerings with a forthcoming platform for non-fungible token and banking services for institutional clients.