Fortune and other media outlets reported that Kraken founder Jesse Powell announced that he is stepping down as CEO of the crypto exchange that he founded in 2011. He will be replaced by long-time COO Dave Ripley, who joined Kraken a few years ago when the exchange acquired crypto wallet firm Glidera. Forbes reports that Powell had been considering stepping down for some time. He will become Kraken’s first chairman of the board and plans to remain active at the firm.
Powell said he decided to step back from the CEO role because he has grown tired of long hours and day-to-day management tasks. Powell and Ripley said that Kraken’s business is thriving and that the company “piled up a ton of cash” during the recent bull market that will help it weather the current crypto winter.
On Twitter, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao showed respect for Jesse Powell‘s decision:
All we can say is that we think Jesse Powell‘s work at Kraken was impressive. Powell has been an influential figure in the crypto scene since Bitcoin’s early days, growing Kraken from a small startup to a major exchange with a reputation for product innovation. He also seems to have steered the crypto exchange well through the recent turmoil when competitors like Blockchain.com lost a lot of money.
