Kraken Shuts Down San Francisco-based HQ, Blaming for Local Safety

Kraken, the first cryptocurrency exchange to become a bank in the U.S., has shut down its headquarters in San Francisco on grounds, saying that a region is no longer a safe place for its business.

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As contained in a statement released by Kraken’s Chief Executive Officer, Jesse Powell, the closure of its headquarters became necessitated, attributing to the local safety as lots of its employees have been attacked on the streets, robbed, and harassed on the way to and from the office.

The outspoken Kraken boss has blamed the policies of the District Attorney for the San Francisco area Chesa Boudin, whom he noted “Ingloriously Protects” criminals based on his ‘Catch and Release’ program. 

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Source: Kraken

The challenges the trading platform is facing seem to extend beyond just its employees’ safety, as the statement from Powell also noted that its business partners often refuse to visit again after being victimized. The complaints have showcased how lawless the San Francisco area, deemed as the financial capital of California, has been, a tag that is notably against its business prospects.

According to the statement from Powell, the crimes being perpetrated in the city are grossly underreported because San Francisco is a very prominent city. Powell believes “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 is a regulated cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, one of the largest with a known headquarters. With the closure of the firm’s operating base on Market Street in San Francisco, it is obvious, unless otherwise stated, that the trading platform will operate like Coinbase and Binance, two giants in the space with no notable headquarters.

There is no indication of the next steps for the trading platform nor a statement from the DA based on allegations Powell levied on Boudin. On social media, many have supported the claims of Powell, while a number of others believe the proliferation of tech firms helped raise the cost of living and the high rate of crimes in the area.

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Coinbase crypto exchange to close San Francisco headquarters in 2022

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is going completely remote and closing is its head offices in San Francisco.

Coinbase announced Wednesday that it will shut down its former headquarters in the Golden Gate City in 2022 as part of its commitment to “being remote first.”

“We’ve committed to having no HQ, and it’s important to show our decentralized workforce that no one location is [more] important than the another,” Coinbase noted. According to the company, the upcoming closure will be an important step in ensuring that no office becomes an unofficial headquarters. “Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to,” the firm stated.

Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong officially announced the firm’s intention to become remote-first and decentralized in February 2021. At the time, 52% of Coinbase employees were those who joined the company in a post-office world, the firm said. Coinbase stressed that about 95% of its employees will still have the option to work at home.

“We now have employees, many who originally worked in San Francisco, all over the country and world. Since January 2020, nearly 250 employees have relocated worldwide, and more than 150 have left San Francisco, representing about 21% of our global and 29% of our San Francisco workforce during that time,” Coinbase wrote.

Coinbase’s move into being remote-first echoes a similar no-headquarters stance by competitor Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said back in 2019 that office and headquarters are “old concepts like SMS and MMS.”