Kraken's CEO on Their Battle Against The SEC
Bankless
Bankless
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2023
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kraken is one of the two most important exchanges in the US right now, it's also an essential bridge across many other jurisdictions. Recently Kraken has come under fire by the SEC for the second time this year.
In today’s episode we're joined by Kraken CEO, Dave Ripley. Dave walks us through what it's like to take the reigns of one of the largest US crypto exchanges and how he plans to navigate the constant battles they have to face from US regulators.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
04:27 Regulatory Action Around Kraken
09:27 Is This a PR Stunt By The SEC?
11:31 "Co-Mingling Funds" & Fighting The SEC
16:28 Hostility Towards Crypto
21:03 Leaving The US?
24:32 Getting To Know the New CEO
28:50 Finding Bitcoin In 2013
32:48 Kraken Values
38:40 Custody & Proof Of Reserves
42:18 Kraken Endgame
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RESOURCES
Dave Ripley:
https://twitter.com/DavidLRipley
Why Kraken:
https://www.kraken.com/why-kraken
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://bankless.com/disclosures
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I don't think we need you to have a prolific Twitter presence because some exchange |
| 0:06.8 | leads have done that and let us down some pretty dark paths. |
| 0:10.1 | What we need from Dave Ripley is to protect our funds and build fantastic products. |
| 0:22.4 | Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the front of your internet money and internet finance. |
| 0:26.6 | This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman and we're here to help you become more |
| 0:31.2 | bankless. Cracking versus the SEC. Round two. Some context here. Round two. Before we get in, |
| 0:37.4 | Cracking is one of the two most important exchanges in the US right now. It's also an essential bridge |
| 0:41.9 | across a bunch of other jurisdictions. Cracking is big in Europe, Australia, Canada, many places |
| 0:47.4 | across the world. Recently, Cracking has come under fire for the second time from the SEC. That's |
| 0:53.8 | the second time this year. They settled the first complaint. It's cost them $30 million, but this |
| 1:00.4 | time they are fighting the SEC in court. They're saying enough is enough. Cracking versus the SEC |
| 1:06.5 | and the state of California, it's on. So we brought on CEO Dave Ripley to tell us more. |
| 1:11.6 | And in the process, it's a good opportunity to get to know him as one of the world's most important |
| 1:16.0 | centralized exchange operators. David, why was this episode significant to you? I think it's |
| 1:20.1 | important that Cracking has to actually fight this time because I think it's pretty clear that |
| 1:24.6 | the SEC is looking for below the belt wins that they're trying to just scrape out of the crypto |
| 1:30.7 | industry in whatever way that they can. And so Cracking is choosing to fight very firmly because they |
| 1:34.9 | realize that like if they settle again, then well, what's to stop Gary Gensler from just trying |
| 1:40.0 | a third time and a fourth time? Because we know Gary Gensler is not about the facts. He is just |
| 1:46.1 | here for the narrative. He's just here for the perceived win that he can go to take home and show |
| 1:51.2 | mom and dad, Janet Yellen and Elizabeth Warren. And so Cracking has got to fight. They're taking |
| 1:56.8 | this heavy responsibility of advocating for the entire industry on their shoulders and fighting |
... |
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