The head of the major cryptocurrency exchange is not going to comply with the New York attorney general’s request for information. “The resource diversion for this production is massive. This is going to completely blow up our roadmap!” Kraken co-founder and CEO Jesse Powell said Wednesday on Twitter.
“Then I realized we made the wise decision to get the hell out of New York three years ago and that we can dodge this bullet,” Powell said. “Ordinarily, we’re happy to help government understand our business, however, this is not the way to go about it.”
Several cryptocurrency companies such as Kraken usually do not operate in New York as the nation requires them to get a “BitLicense” from the New York State Department of Financial Services. Coinbase, Ripple, Circle along with bitFlyer USA have the license, and itBit and the the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Trust possess charters from the monetary services section.
“Legitimate entities generally like to demonstrate to their investors that their money will be protected,” Amy Spitalnick, spokeswoman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said in a statement.
“This is very basic information that any credible platform should have on hand and be willing to share with their investors,” she said.
Schneiderman’s office requested 13 cryptocurrency exchanges on Tuesday to complete a questionnaire by May 1 to share details on areas like fees, ownership, trading suspensions and cash laundering.
Coinbase, bitFlyer USA, the Gemini Trust and also four exchange operators who responded to CNBC’s petition expressed support to the request.
Powell was the first dissenting voice. He added in his announcement that if the attorney general’s office did want to speak, “ask us for a phone call, fly yourself out to San Francisco, invite us for lunch at your office. We can tell you which industry groups to join and where to begin your research.”
Powell said that the last time trades complied together with the request for information of New York, they were encumbered with the BitLicense. “Kraken left New York because New York is hostile to crypto and this ‘questionnaire’ we received today proves that New York is not only hostile to crypto, it is hostile to business,” he said.
The San Francisco-based market is the 12th largest by cryptocurrency trading volume throughout the previous 24 hours, based to CoinMarketCap. For US dollar Bitcoin trading, Kraken ranked fifth by market share, according to CryptoCompare.
