Kraken Shuts Down its Headquarters in San Francisco

Kraken’s CEO decided to close the company’s headquarters in San Francisco after blaming the city for being incapable of ensuring public safety.

San Francisco Is not Safe

Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, released a statement that the company has closed the headquarters office located in San Francisco “after numerous employees were attacked, harassed, and robbed on their way to and from the office.”

The statement first appeared on the Internet via a tweet by Richie Greenberg, a San Francisco-based political commentator. Since then, it has attracted numerous responses in the Twitter community regarding the safety issue in the city where many crypto companies are based.

According to the words penned by Powell, San Francisco’s problems in public safety, crime, homelessness, and drug abuse are totally “underreported” because “it is so commonplace.” The main issue, in Powell’s view, points to District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who has not done enough to criminalize and penalize law offenders.

“San Francisco is not safe and will not be safe until we have a DA who puts the rights of law abiding citizens above those of the street criminals he so ingloriously protects.”

Kraken’s decision came after Coinbase announced the shutdown of its headquarters in San Francisco by 2022. Last year, the company attributed the decision to its commitment to a decentralized workplace, meaning that no headquarters was assigned to a specific location. This practice is also embraced by Coinbase’s major competitor, Binance, which has operated as a remote global company since its launch.

Powell Outspoken as Always

In February, when the Vice PM of Ukraine asked cryptocurrency exchanges to halt servicing Russian customers, Powell claimed Bitcoin is the embodiment of libertarian value. He stated that “despite my deep respect for the Ukrainian people, Kraken cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so.”