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Kraken has spent $2.75 billion on acquisitions in the past year, and co-CEO Arjun Sethi says the point is not a bigger exchange. The goal is a 24/7 global operating system for capital markets: spot, derivatives, payments, tokenized equities, and custody under one regulatory stack.
Sethi makes the case for each move, from REAP’s tripling revenue in emerging markets to Bitnomial’s CFTC trifecta, and says what will actually drive Kraken’s next three years is not trading volume.
The conversation then turns to the SEC’s paused innovation exemption for tokenized equities, why Citadel and SIFMA showed up to lobby against it, and whether direct listings on crypto rails could eventually replace Wall Street’s IPO machine.
The episode closes on a question nobody saw coming: what Pope Leo’s first encyclical on AI and finance has to do with the Bitcoin white paper.
Hosts:
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- Austin Campbell, Founder, Zero Knowledge Consulting; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern
- Ram Ahluwalia, Co-Host, CEO of Lumida
- Chris Perkins, Co-Host, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management
Guest:
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- Arjun Sethi – Co-CEO of Kraken / Payward and Chairman of Tribe Capital
