Founder & Executive Chairman, Kraken
Kraken CEO: Crypto Is 'Cash Under the Mattress'
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell joins Emily Chang to discuss crypto exchanges' responsibilities as sanctions pile up against Russia ...
About Jesse Powell
Jesse Powell, co-founder and executive chairman of Kraken, has continued to advocate for cryptocurrency as a foundational technology for new societies and a financial "rail of last resort." In a 2025 interview, he discussed the concept of "network states," describing them as a "new frontier" where a "crypto-first society" could be built, with Kraken potentially designing financial products to support such experiments. He has also been critical of the U.S. regulatory environment, stating that there is still "a lot of uncertainty" and calling for a single regulator for crypto and clearer asset classification. Powell has described the SEC's approach as applying "laws that were created 80 years ago" to crypto. Powell has also been outspoken on workplace culture and political issues. In 2023, he published a memo outlining Kraken's libertarian-leaning culture, which he described as "the most neutral view," and offered employees who disagreed a severance package. He has stated that he believes "when you go woke you go broke" and that the company saw a surge in job applications after the policy was publicized. Regarding the 2022 collapse of FTX, Powell characterized it as a "scam" and a "Ponzi," but argued it was not an indictment of the broader crypto industry)Skip to content
Transcript (14 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
You've been very clear that Kraken won't freeze the accounts of general Russian users. Given the events of the last 24 hours, Putin's escalation of this war, does your position on that still stand?
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Jesse Powell0:13
It's really hard to know, as a private business which doesn't have a major global geopolitical analyst function inside, trying to evaluate these situations play by play. We look at our role as being able to follow executive orders from the White House, being able to follow OFAC and sanctions coming from the government. We're very happy to comply with those; we've got a long history of working with governments and law enforcement. But to ourselves just decide to impose account freezes on individual Russians who probably don't support this invasion, I think is a bit a step too far. Freezing someone's finances is more than just stopping selling them shoes or photo filters. It's a pretty extreme measure, and we won't do it until we're forced to do it by the government.
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Interviewer1:10
We know the Department of Justice is going after luxury assets of Russian tycoons, including crypto assets. Have you been contacted by enforcement officials? Are you cooperating? And what do you think the role is of exchanges in that respect?
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Jesse Powell1:24
Kraken dealt with over 2,500 law enforcement requests last year, so we're in regular contact with law enforcement and regulators and governments around the world pretty much at all times. We get more than 10 requests per business day, so we're actively in communication. We've got a 24/7 compliance team of over 600 people who is monitoring the situation and ready to respond to sanctions or any kind of executive order coming from the government. As a US-based company, we're obviously following the rules of the United States, and so when we hear from the government that there's something to do, we will comply.
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Interviewer2:04
Do you see the legal risk though as escalating? And are you consulting with officials actively to assess that and figure out what Kraken should be doing?
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Jesse Powell2:15
It's an ordinary course of business for us. There's not really anything special to do here. We're monitoring the situation. We're sort of passive here in that the government can contact us at any time. We have regular contact with the government and many governments around the world. So there's not sort of an active dialogue going on about what we're going to do outside of any kind of formal regulatory requirement.
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Interviewer2:42
Now, Chainalysis is reporting data that shows Russians, residents, and sanctions-hit Russia are not in a hurry to trade on crypto exchanges. Is that what you're seeing? What color can you give us on volume and liquidity?
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Jesse Powell2:59
Kraken doesn't have a ruble market, so if Russians did historically want to get money into Kraken, they would have to be going through the euro or the dollar, generally through the SWIFT wire system to get money in. Now that banks are shut off from SWIFT in Russia, it's going to be very hard for people in Russia to get money out of the country and into the global crypto exchanges. So I think they're going to have a tough time there. We haven't seen much activity coming out of Russia. People might have already had their money in Kraken; they're still free to trade it, they're free to withdraw their cryptocurrency out of Kraken. But there hasn't been a lot of activity, and I think that's largely due to the sanctions that are in place now on the banking system. People just can't get their money in and out of the country.
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Interviewer3:46
And what about crypto going in and out of Ukraine? Obviously we know that Ukraine has raised millions of dollars worth of digital assets. What kind of volume and liquidity are you seeing there?
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Jesse Powell3:59
Huge uptick in activity around Ukraine. Obviously tens of millions of dollars have been donated directly with cryptocurrency, and I think that's an amazing story to follow. The government has directly raised money from all over the world to finance the defense, and people are able through crypto crowdfunding to support people directly without any sort of intermediary. We saw something similar in Canada as well, when the government of Canada sanctioned its own citizens and turned off protesters from the banking system. Cryptocurrency was there to continue to support people and be that financial rail of last resort where the government had revoked those permissions.
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Interviewer4:43
Ukraine is calling for more crypto donations, not just in the form of Bitcoin but Doge and Tether. We've seen some mixed results here. Do you see the scope of digital assets as a force for good, or is it more complicated than that?
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Jesse Powell5:00
Definitely a force for good. I think currency choice generally is a force for good. I think the de-weaponization of the financial system is a good thing. We look at sanctions against Russia as generally a good thing, a good way to non-violently, non-physically respond to a policy that we don't like. But those same weapons that we impose on Russia, the sanctions, can also be imposed against your own citizens, and we've seen this happen in many countries around the world, obviously Canada most recently. Often regimes turn inward against their own people, and when that happens, once funds are frozen it's very hard to leave that situation. Cryptocurrency is something that sort of exists as cash under the mattress that you can take with you if you want to get out of a bad situation. If your bank account has been frozen without due process, it's on you to go back and fight to get that back, and without any money to do that, you're worried about feeding your family, you don't have money to pay a lawyer to try to go get your money back that's been frozen in your bank account. So I think a lot of people are looking at crypto now as a sort of backup plan, as an insurance policy against their government turning against them.
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Interviewer6:24
What's your take on the macro risks right now though? What are you most concerned about, especially as it pertains to cryptocurrency? I know you and I have had a lot of conversations about price and Bitcoin going to the moon, in your words, and we've certainly seen Bitcoin rallying but then also pull back. Are you concerned about the risks to crypto given what we're seeing in global equities?
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Jesse Powell6:50
No. I think you just look at the long-term 10-year chart of Bitcoin, and it's outperforming everything else in the world, so I'm not worried about it. These kinds of geopolitical problems we're seeing with Canada and Russia are great examples of where Bitcoin really shines. Outside of being a speculative asset, it's really solving real problems for people on the ground, and I think the more people are going to see that, and it's going to become an even bigger thing as people look to Bitcoin as a safe haven.