The incoming chief executive Dave Ripley said on Thursday that the exchange Kraken has no plans to delist token that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has labeled as securities or to register with the agency as a market intermediary.
The San Francisco-based platform, which has more than nine million clients, underscores the challenges the securities regulator is facing in its effort to rein in the industry.
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 said he would 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 business at a time when the market for cryptocurrencies is facing a major rout, with bitcoins down nearly 60% this year, and the fast-growing industry is at odds with regulators like the SEC.
Despite reports that the SEC is scrutinizing Coinbase for listing several tokens on its platform, the regulator identified as securities in a July insider trading lawsuit, Kraken has no plans to remove those tokens from its exchange, Ripley said.
According to Ripley, Kraken sees no reason to register with the SEC as an exchange because he 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 industry 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 that's a possibility, said Ripley, adding that the company has not made any moves yet.
He said Kraken would consider acquisitions that bolster its product and tech portfolio, especially as the exchange looks to broaden its offerings with a forthcoming platform for non-fungible token and banking services for institutional clients.