Kraken cuts workforce by 15% and appoints new co-CEO

Crypto exchange Kraken is laying off 15% of its workforce and restructuring its management by appointing Arjun Sethi as co-CEO. Kraken wants to become leaner and faster while streamlining operations.

With 400 jobs cut, including senior roles, Kraken’s goal is to position itself in the competitive crypto exchange market. Is it because now most operations are moving on-chain?

Kraken removes 15% staff along with 2 senior executives

The crypto exchange will lay off 15% of its staff and restructure its management. In a press release on Wednesday, Kraken said Arjun Sethi will join Dave Ripley as co-CEOs of the platform.

The change could mean the company is changing its product development and organizational structure approach. Kraken underlined that to become the largest crypto platform, it is focusing on becoming leaner and more agile by cutting down management layers.

The crypto exchange said, “This structure can provide clear paths for ‘managers’ whereby they can move from smaller, less complex areas of focus to progressively larger and more complex ones.” According to a report by the New York Times, the layoff will eliminate 400 of the company’s 2,600 employees. Chief operating officer, Gilles BianRosa, and the chief technology officer, Vishnu Patankar, were reportedly included in the layoff.

Exchanges move operations on-chain

In 2022, the company had cut off 1,100 employees from its workforce. Co-founder Jesse Powell also stepped down as CEO and made way for David Ripley soon after.

Based on CoinGecko data, Kraken rounds out the top five exchanges with $801 million in 24-hour trading volume and 5 million monthly visits. Binance tops the list with a normalized 24-hour volume of $9.87 billion and 54.2 million monthly visits. Bybit follows with a $4.16 billion volume and 22.8 million visits, while Coinbase Exchange, with $2.26 billion in volume, attracts 30 million monthly visitors. OKX takes the fourth spot, seeing $1.99 billion in trading volume and 17.7 million visits.

Crypto writer Jax Dwyer argues that traditional operations of centralized crypto exchanges like Kraken, Coinbase and Binance might struggle to survive as they move on-chain. He underlined that Coinbase’s Layer-2 solution, Base, generated $3.78 million in on-chain profit in October 2024. According to him, the move to on-chain transactions brings scalability and new revenue streams. Kraken has also launched its own Layer-2 network, Ink.

The change means that CEXs would become competitive in the decentralized space. However, it doesn’t mean it would ‘replace’ traditional centralized exchange operations.