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

key takeaways

  • 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.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (2).png

Research

Uniswap confronts structural headwinds as Ethereum's dominance in DEX volume erodes while Solana emerges as the leading ecosystem. Despite massive historical volume, UNI token holders receive no revenue distribution after four years of operation, while multi-chain expansion efforts consistently underperform due to subsidized local competitors. Recent initiatives including Unichain L2 and V4 protocol upgrades have failed to generate meaningful organic adoption despite substantial incentive programs, highlighting the challenge of competing in increasingly fragmented markets without sustainable value accrual mechanisms.

article-image

Blockworks Research’s Boccaccio explains why he likes Plasma “overall”

article-image

Solana’s client ecosystem is growing, and that’s good news for decentralization

article-image

Trump’s team is feeling positive headed into the trade negotiation meeting in London

article-image

Machine learning model updates have helped address the problem, according to Coinbase’s VP of product

article-image

With over 5,000 participants, Union sets the stage for a high-speed, zero-knowledge interoperability layer

article-image

Bitcoin grew too big for these types of hypotheticals