Kraken CEO Jesse Powell steps down

Powell is stepping down from his position at the exchange. Dave Ripley will become Powell's successor in the coming months.

The shake-up is significant as Powell has been an influential figure in the scene since the beginning of the scene, growing the exchange from a small startup to a major exchange with a reputation for product innovation. Powell has become a controversial figure due to his unconventional stances on topics like diversity, abortion, and vaccines.

Powell said in an interview with Fortune that he was stepping back from the CEO role because he was tired of long hours and day-to-day management tasks.

He said that he wants to spend more time on things he enjoys doing, like working on product and industry advocacy.

Powell said the company ran an extensive CEO search and interviewed more than a dozen candidates before choosing Ripley.

When it comes to the company's culture, Ripley says he expects nothing will change and that he likes the task of managing large teams.

Ripley said that he and Jesse are not the same level of cultural figure in terms of social media.

According to Powell, Ripley was a co-author of a controversial culture document which explicitly rejected mandates to promote diversity and inclusion.

Powell wrote that most people don't care and just want to work but they can't be productive while triggered people drag them in to debates and therapy sessions.

Powell told Fortune that the culture document was one of the high points of his time at the company.

The companypiled up a ton of cash during the recent bull market in order to weather the current downturn, according to Powell and Ripley.

Powell contemplated going public before he backed away, but was cagey about it. He said that he had gotten in trouble in the past for speaking publicly about the topic, but that a public offering is still on the horizon.

Despite macroeconomic tumult, the founder of the Kraken predicted that the popularity of the coin would grow.

He said that the world is changing and that the legacy financial system is not stable.