The incoming CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, Dave Ripley, announced on Thursday that the exchange has no plans to delist tokens that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has labeled as securities or register with the agency as market intermediary.

In July, the SEC began examining Coinbase for listing several tokens on its platform that the regulator identified as securities. As a result, crypto exchanges like Binance delisted some of the tokens that the watchdog recognized as security in the recent Coinbase insider trading case.

But Ripley has said that Kraken has no plans to remove those tokens from its exchange. The executive said that Kraken sees no reason to register with the SEC as an exchange because his company does not offer securities, despite calls from SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for crypto platforms to register.

“There are no tokens out there that are securities that we are interested in listing. There could be some new token that becomes interesting and is also simultaneously a security [and] in that case, we would be potentially interested in going down that path,” Ripley said.

Despite giant players in the crypto market like Celsius Network and Voyager Digital filing for bankruptcy, and others like Coinbase announcing layoffs, Ripley said that Kraken is looking for M&A opportunities in the current market environment. He said the exchange is even open to considering companies that are going through bankruptcy proceedings.

However, he said that Kraken would consider acquisitions that boost its product and technology portfolio, particularly as the exchange looks to expand its offerings with an upcoming platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and banking services for institutional clients.

Why is Kraken changing its name as Libertarian?

Kraken has been a champion of the libertarian values ​​associated with cryptocurrencies. And it seems that the new CEO wants to stay on that course as part of the company culture.

In March, Kraken refused to close Russian accounts unless ordered to do so by regulators. During that time, outgoing Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said the exchange was within the requirements of legal sanctions and was working with law enforcement to ensure banned accounts do not unfairly harm innocent Russians. Amid mounting financial sanctions against Russia, Kraken refused to freeze Russian user accounts.

On Wednesday of this week, Kraken announced that its often-controversial CEO Jesse Powell would be stepping down and Ripley, Kraken’s COO, would take over as CEO after the company hires a new COO.

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