Kraken CEO Jesse Powell Steps Down

COO Dave Ripley will succeed Powell, who is slated to become chair of the board of directors

article-image

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell

share
  • The exchange has over 3,000 employees and has recently replaced other top executives
  • Powell is currently Kraken’s largest shareholder

Crypto exchange Kraken is restructuring its leadership team.

CEO Jesse Powell will no longer lead the company he founded in 2011. Dave Ripley, chief operating officer at the exchange for the last six years, will succeed Powell once the search for his own replacement as COO has been completed.

Powell will remain at the company, however, becoming the chair of the board of directors. He is currently Kraken’s largest shareholder.

Powell shared in a statement that stepping down as CEO will enable him to spend more time on the company’s products, user experience and industry advocacy. 

Ripley stated in a press release that his vision, “along with the rest of the leadership team, is in lock-step with Jesse’s – to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency.” 

Kraken has over 3,000 employees and has recently replaced other top executives.

The company hired Carrie Dolan as chief financial officer in March and then named Mayur Gupta its chief marketing officer in April.

Back in June, Kraken released a “culture document” that attempted to explain the company’s culture, which ended up being a controversial move.

Loading Tweet..

Kraken is the fourth-largest crypto exchange in terms of spot-trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap.

The exchange also has plans to launch its own NFT marketplace soon.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Kaito stands out as a rare monetization success in AI, generating ~$20.8M ARR from Yapper Leaderboards and Kaito Pro. Already the default platform for token launches with 43 pre-TGE leaderboards, it is expanding into the post-TGE market with 49 major projects live. The Capital Launchpad has raised $12.7M in two weeks, adding $630K in fees. With underpriced staking yields and a defensible data moat, Kaito is positioned as the clear leader in InfoFi.

article-image

Tether’s ascent as a top-10 foreign buyer of Treasurys signals stablecoin issuers are no longer just liquidity users

article-image

Hot markets have made for big paydays this year

article-image

Gold is proof that belief sustained over millennia creates real value; crypto is hoping to take a shortcut

article-image

Fears that rollups would abandon Ethereum haven’t materialized — instead, chains like Celo and Lisk have migrated the other way

article-image

Crypto IPO hype has room to run as Bitwise exec says there remains a “massive shortage” of public crypto firms

article-image

The state-backed token is being deployed across 7 blockchains and will direct profits toward education