Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, let the bad guys blow up bigger because it “serves their agenda.” He stated. The executive explained.” The bad guys operate with a huge competitive advantage. They siphon off users, revenue, and venture capital that would otherwise go to the good guys.”
Kraken’s CEO has a theory about U.S. crypto regulation
Jesse Powell, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, took to Twitter on Sunday to express his views on crypto regulation in the United States. The executive began.
I have a theory. Regulators make the bad guys bigger and blow them up because it serves their agenda
Powell went on to list three goals he believes regulators are trying to achieve: the first, he wrote, is to “destroy capital/resources in the [crypto] ecosystem.” The second, he continued, is to “burn people, [and] deter recruitment,” and the third is to “give air cover to attack good actors.”
The Kraken boss argued that for regulators. He said, “The bad guys are actually our allies. The good guys are the enemy,” he asserted. But, he stressed, they are not.” If the bad guys can execute long enough without exploding, they might kill the good guys for you.” Powell warned, noting that the bad guys “can always be imprisoned later.”
The bad guys operate with a huge competitive advantage. They siphon off users, revenue, and venture capital that would otherwise go to the good guys.
In another tweet, Powell commented that regulators often seek more funding from Congress to regulate the crypto sector more effectively.” Funding is the obvious scapegoat. ‘If we had a bigger budget, we would have caught them. The facts don’t support that, but instead of imposing real consequences for failure, we reward them with bigger budgets. All the glory is in the disaster response, which is why politicians fabricate disasters,” he opined.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took action against Kraken for its staking program. The crypto exchange settled with the SEC and agreed to shut down its staking program for U.S. customers and pay $30 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.
Powell also recently expressed his frustration over regulators ignoring his warnings about illegal activity in the crypto space and then slapping his exchange with enforcement action. Without specifically mentioning the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, the Kraken chief tweeted Friday.
I can’t tell you how infuriating it is that I pointed out massive red flags and clearly illegal activity to regulators and they ignored the issue for years. They are offshore. They’re complicated. They are looking into everyone. For years. And they use them as an example.
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