FT Cryptofinance: Jesse Powell from Kraken joins the list of crypto withdrawals

Hello and welcome to the FT. This week we take a look at Jesse Powell's decision to withdraw from octopuses as Chief Executive.

The crypto industry is not as young as its supporters want to believe. It was busy growing up with a whole series of C-Suite names that have become synonymous for the Krypto brand itself.

But the almost unprecedented crash of the market at the beginning of this year not only cost thousands of people their jobs (on them, coinbase, gemini, crypto.com and some others), its effects are now sneaking over some of the most volume and controversial crypto companies.

This week Jesse Powell said that the controversial industrial pioneer in the forties was that he would resign as managing director of the Kraken crypto exchange. He joins Michael Saylor by Microstrategy, Michael Moro of Genesis and Sam Trabucco from Alameda to give up positions during the current recession.

These resignations come shortly after a few more serious disasters in the industry, the Alex Mashinsky, the managing director of the bankruptcy crypto credit platform Celsius, and Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, who have captured the heads behind Three Arrows Capital, the notorious crypto hedge.

Most of them were active social media influencers who used platforms such as Twitter to preach the advantages of digital tokens. When the prices skyrocketed, they contributed to the culture of the industry.

POWELL was a prime example of how this accessibility in social media and trust in the thousand -year vision of transformed society from Crypto could combine into an exhilarating brew

He used the libertarian ethos of crypto as a pronounced critic of "awakened" politics and monitored a octopus "culture" to " die Mission ".

According to a tweet in June, some “Krakskinites” were dissatisfied with certain aspects of life on the stock exchange, including what Powell described as “first-world problems”, such as. . . * checks notes*. . . "Whether someone can identify as another breed and can use the N-word".

In the further course of the thread, he defended his freedom of speech. Powell also said that he "debated a bit because [He’s] open". He later signed that "people are triggered by everything and cannot adhere to the basic rules of an honest debate. Back to the dictatorship". OK.

Why do top executives look at the door? It is often said that important events in life stimulate thought about the essentials. Powell wanted to withdraw from day-to-day business, Trabucco recently bought a Boot Saylor absolutely wants to concentrate on buying Bitcoin.

But a successful religion needs their prophets and their profits. Your departure coincides with sensitive topics.

Microstrategy-the once obscure software company, which is de facto a bitcoin ETF-stared at billion dollar losses this summer after it has spent the past few years of focusing on Bitcoin. Saylor also has to solve a tax problem.

MORO left Genesis when the crypto broker costs the cost of lending to Three Arrows Capital in the amount of 2.4 billion

The New York Times reported that investigations at federal levels were going against octopus because it may have violated US sanctions. Powell himself had resisted the recent name of the crypto service Tornado Cash by the Ministry of Finance, which allegedly enabled washed cryptos worth billions, and described them as "unconstitutional".

In traditional financial system, the gap that a charismatic CEO has left is usually filled by a more sober person who responds less to colorful comments that they bring into difficulties with supervisory authorities or employees.

But crypto can be different. Powell plans to focus on the advocacy for the industry. Saylor also wants to become an evangelist, and I wonder what he has done in the past two years.

The industry is currently going through one of its periodic swings. Many of the leading heads in the industry, such as Sam Bankman-Fried von FTX, Brian Armstrong from Coinbase and Michael Novogratz from Galaxy Digital, are still preaching on social media. We wait and see who else appears to lead it out of the wilderness.

Will the series of resignation from crypto managers stop? Take a look at this area and send me an email to scott.chipolina@ft.com.

Weekly highlights

• Another week, another crypto hack. This time the number was called by Market Maker Wintermute. Managing Director Evgeny Gaevoy said The defect operations of the platform were compromised in the amount of $ 160 million, but winter mass was "solvent" with "twice as much equity left". For the future, the company plans to hold on to defi belief and "to get ahead with this bear market".

• A remarkable legal case: The Securities and Exchange Commission has strictly exemplified a procedure against Ian Balina in which he had said that he failed to disclose compensation that he had received from an initial initial in 2018. In a court application this week, the regulatory authority claimed the responsibility for ether transactions that from a network of nodes this week were validated that "are clustered in the United States than in any other country". After the merger, some commentators said they were concerned about the "censor resistance" of Ethereum. You can read everything about it in my recent representation of the Proof-of-Stake shift of the network and its importance for the future of crypto.

• Binance announced a new global advisory committee, which is led by the former US senator and ambassador in China, Max Baucus and which the former ISOCO general secretary David Wright belongs. The board of directors is advised on "complex regulatory, political and social issues with which the entire crypto industry is confronted". Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao described the board as "proof of our focus on compliance, transparency and the guarantee of a cooperative relationship with the regulatory authorities in the world", but the stock exchange was confronted with a number of disputes with regulatory authorities around the world, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and Singapor

• The Crypto Council for Innovation, a crypto interest representation, launched the Digital Future Award this week to recognize US congress members who are “leading with a complex and differentiated series of topics” in connection with digital assets. The award winners include the senators Ted Cruz and Cynthia Lummis as well as the congress member Maxine Waters.

Soundbite of the week: Consumer protection from the finest

Usually there is a remarkable quote in this section of my newsletter, but this week it is different. Below is a screenshot that documents the efforts of Binance to protect its consumers from Terra 2.0.

When I read the warning, I thought of this classic Simpsons scene in which Homer Fugu eats, the fish that could give up a great meal but which could also kill him. "Yes, yes, it is poisonous, possibly fatal, but if it is cut properly, it can be pretty tasty."

Binance said that it uses strict security protocols and complies with high standards for the listed tokens, and encouraged users to understand all the associated risks and act with caution.

data-mining

Tether, the world's largest stable coin provider, came under pressure again this week to open its doors to regulatory authorities. A New York court has instructed Tether-and the sister company Bitfinex-to present documents that relate to the protection of the Tether Stable Cooin.

The good news for Tether, however, is the fact that Bitcoin trade in Tether (USDT) has risen sharply in the last months after this year's crypto market crash.

According to data, which was compiled by the data analysis platform CryptoCOMPARE, the Bitcoin-Unddt trading volume in Bitcoin has doubled since May when the stable binding to the dollar briefly lost as a result of the growing sales pressure in the course of the crypto prices crashed.