Kraken CEO disagrees with New York State Attorney General

Jesse Powell, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, recently launched a regulatory fight with officials in New York, refusing to respond to a formal request from the state attorney general.

The Kraken exchange is one of many cryptocurrency startups that have fled New York following the passage of the "BitLicence" mandate, which requires any business "related to remittances" to apply for an expensive license that would require the exchange to provide public records of its activities to government agencies, including customer information.

The fee for just applying for the license is $5,000, and costs legal services related to legalization, from $50,000 to $100,000. In addition to the Kraken exchange, Bitfinex, LocalBitcoins, Paxful, Poloniex, BitQuick, BTCGuild, Eobot, Genesis Mining and GoCoin left the country in connection with this requirement.

In April of this year, the Attorney General of the State of New York began an investigation into cryptocurrency exchanges under the pretext of protecting consumers. In a formal request, the official asked 13 of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, Bitfinex, Bittrex, Binance and Kraken, to provide large amounts of financial activity data. After receiving the request, Jesse Powell posted a lengthy statement online explaining why he was refusing to comply.

ShapeShift CEO Eric Voorhees supported the request, saying it was correct. position that cryptocurrency has provided more transparency for the financial sector and consumer protection than all the bureaucratic requirements of the last 100 years.

In response to Powell's statement, the state attorney said that he could not verify the legality of the activities of the platforms that refused to cooperate (Binance, Gate.io, Huobi and Kraken). report.