{"id":1522,"date":"2019-04-07T18:12:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-07T22:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2023-06-09T11:25:56","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T11:25:56","slug":"bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager","status":"publish","type":"news_posts","link":"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former employee of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/1370427D:US\">Kraken,<\/a> one of the oldest Bitcoin exchanges, is suing the crypto platform for allegedly failing to pay him for work he did.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Silverman, who was hired in April 2017 to manage Kraken\u2019s institutional sales and trading desk in New York, is demanding compensation in excess of $900,000, according to a suit filed April 4 in New York. That\u2019s based on an agreement Silverman says he reached with Jesse Powell, the San Francisco-based exchange\u2019s founder, who offered him a $150,000 salary and orally agreed to pay him a 10 percent commission of the trading desk\u2019s annual profit. Silverman says the trading desk generated more than $19 million in profits during three months in 2017 and he never received neither the commission nor additional promised stock options.<\/p>\n<p>Silverman \u201cis both lying and in breach of his confidentiality agreement,\u201d said Christina Vee, a spokeswoman for Kraken.<\/p>\n<p>Powell is known in the cryptocurrency world for his outspoken views on what rules should apply to the trading of digital assets. Last year Powell responded to a request by the New York Attorney General for information about his exchange by saying, in part, that &#8220;most crypto traders&#8221; aren\u2019t concerned about &#8220;being protected from market manipulation&#8221; even though \u201cscams are rampant.\u201d Kraken is one of the exchanges that sets prices for CME Group Inc.\u2019s Bitcoin futures contract. Powell has said that Kraken doesn\u2019t have to adhere to New York rules because the firm hasn\u2019t operated in the state for years.<\/p>\n<p>In an April 2018 tweet, Powell said, \u201cWe made the wise decision to get the hell out of New York three years ago.\u201d Kraken <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kraken.com\/post\/253\/farewell-new-york\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a> in a 2015 blog post that it discontinued its New York services, citing onerous requirements from the state\u2019s BitLicense, a regulatory framework required by the Department of Financial Services for virtual currency businesses. \u201cRegrettably, the abominable BitLicense has awakened. It is a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth,\u201d the company wrote in the post titled \u201cFarewell, New York.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those assertions are challenged in the Silverman lawsuit. Kraken had been \u201cmisrepresenting to the public and government regulators that it was not operating in New York; when in reality, Kraken\u2019s OTC practice, and OTC trading (including logging into the Kraken exchange and negotiating wire transfers) occurred almost exclusively in New York,\u201d the filing reads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust because some people in the cryptocurrency space don\u2019t believe the rules apply to them doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s the way things actually work,\u201d David Silver, one of the attorneys representing Silverman, said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n<p>Kraken\u2019s New York trading desk is believed to have made the company profit of $19 million between Sept. 15 and year-end 2017, according to a separate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courtlistener.com\/docket\/7811490\/adler-v-payward-inc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suit<\/a> brought against the company by former employee Robert Adler. After Silverman left the company, he reached an agreement with Kraken that would pay him $907,631 as a lump sum settlement. The lawsuit alleges Kraken \u201crefused\u201d to pay it out despite the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Silverman was one of at least two employed at Kraken\u2019s New York trading office.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s much more common for crypto exchanges to employ internal trading desks that buy and sell on their own market than in the traditional financial world. A New York Attorney General report on crypto exchanges released last year listed several markets, such as Bitfinex, bitFlyer and Poloniex, that reported they allowed the practices on their exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s the dirty little secret of the crypto exchange world,&#8221; said Richard Johnson, an analyst at Greenwich Associates who specializes in blockchain technology, referring to internal trading desks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">Read the full article:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-04-07\/crypto-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\">Crypto Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trade Desk Manager<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1777,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news_categories":[10],"class_list":["post-1522","news_posts","type-news_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news_categories-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager - SilverMillerLaw.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager - SilverMillerLaw.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A former employee of Kraken, one of the oldest Bitcoin exchanges, is suing the crypto platform for allegedly failing to pay him for work he did. Jonathan Silverman, who was hired in April 2017 to manage Kraken\u2019s institutional sales and trading desk in New York, is demanding compensation in excess of $900,000, according to a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SilverMillerLaw.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/silvermillerlaw\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-09T11:25:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/bloomberg.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"896\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"597\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dcsilver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/\",\"name\":\"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager - SilverMillerLaw.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/bloomberg.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-07T22:12:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-09T11:25:56+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/bloomberg.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/bloomberg.webp\",\"width\":896,\"height\":597,\"caption\":\"Bloomberg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/\",\"name\":\"SilverMillerLaw.com\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager - SilverMillerLaw.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.silvermillerlaw.com\/press\/in-the-news\/bitcoin-exchange-kraken-sued-by-former-trading-desk-manager\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Sued by Former Trading Desk Manager - SilverMillerLaw.com","og_description":"A former employee of Kraken, one of the oldest Bitcoin exchanges, is suing the crypto platform for allegedly failing to pay him for work he did. 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