Kraken CEO: I Feel Dumb for Paying $30 Million Fine to The SEC

• Jesse Powell lamented sarcastically after paying a $30M fine to the US SEC.
• SEC chairman stated that Kraken offered a 21% return without risk disclosure.
• Cardano founder sides with the SEC.

Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken crypto exchange, lamented on Twitter in a sarcastic tone that he made a wrong decision to pay a $30 million regulatory fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Powell expressed the sentiment while reacting to a CNBC interview that featured the SEC chairman, Gary Gensler. In the interview, Gensler stated that Kraken offered the American public a return of 4% to 21% on their crypto tokens without full risk disclosure. The SEC noted that such action was against the laws of the United States.

Gensler added that the required registration was a straightforward process of filling out a form on its official website. To this particular comment, the CEO of Kraken expressed that he felt dumb. He added:

Oh man, all I had to do was fill out a form on a website and tell people that staking rewards come from staking? I wish I’d seen this video before paying a $30m fine and agreeing to permanently shut down the US service.

Recently, Charles Hoskinson, the Cardano proof-of-stake network founder, took sides with the US SEC, arguing against Ethereum. In a video on Twitter, Hoskinson expressed that temporarily giving up assets to another party to do some work on a person’s behalf to generate revenue, as in the case of Ethereum, looked like regulated products. 

On the other hand, Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase crypto exchange, said staking was a crucial innovation in crypto for allowing users to participate in running open crypto networks.