Jesse Powell
Jesse Powell is the current CEO and founder of Kraken, a popular CEX.
Background
Powell is a California State University graduate and got an early start with digital currencies in 2001 when he founded a firm assisting players in online games with account management and in-game currencies. In 2007, he founded the Verge Gallery and Studio Project, which he ran until 2010 as Sacramento's largest contemporary commercial art gallery at the time.
All the while, his interest in Bitcoin grew. After visiting Mt. Gox following its 2011 security breach, he began developing Kraken as a replacement in the event that Mt. Gox closed. Kraken was finally launched in 2013 — the year prior to Mt. Gox’s shutdown — by Powell, who was a regular at San Francisco crypto meetups that year alongside other pioneers including Jed McCaleb of Mt. Gox and Ripple and Brian Armstrong of Coinbase. [1]