A major cryptocurrency exchange is trolling the New York attorney general

It probably wasn’t the smartest move. 

Roughly 24 hours after a major report from the New York state attorney general’s office led officials to declare that the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is “possibly operating unlawfully in New York,” the exchange apparently decided the best response was to thumb its nose at state officials.

In a series of tweets from both the official Kraken Twitter account and the company’s co-founder and CEO, Jesse Powell, the San Francisco-based exchange made it clear that it’s not taking this report seriously — at all. 

“NY is that abusive, controlling ex you broke up with 3 years ago but they keep stalking you, throwing shade on your new relationships, unable to accept that you have happily moved on and are better off without them,” tweeted Powell. “#getoverit,” he added. 

And in case you thought that the CEO was just venting about New York the state (as he bizarrely later implied), the exchange chimed in as well. 

“Thanks to the NY taxpayer for funding this research — saved our Product team a lot of time, and we got some interesting non-public info on our competitors,” tweeted the Kraken account. “Excellent overview of issues, and a nice list of ‘Questions Customers Should Ask’ on pg 32.”

We reached out to Kraken directly to try and better understand what appears to be the company’s flippant response to a rather serious allegation, but received no response as of press time. 

But just because we didn’t hear back from Kraken, doesn’t mean Kraken hasn’t been talking. In a series of follow up tweets, the company claimed that it doesn’t operate in the state of New York at all, and thus the AG’s claims are unfounded.

“We must, however, object to the highly unprofessional/malicious implication that because we did not respond to the voluntary information request, we *might* be operating illegally,” tweeted the company. “We told you we don’t operate in NY. AG trying cases in court of public opinion now?”

This, of course, is not the first thing Kraken said about the report. 

“In announcing the company’s decision not to participate in the Initiative,” the attorney general’s report explained, “Kraken declared that market manipulation ‘doesn’t matter to most crypto traders,’ even while admitting that ‘scams are rampant’ in the industry.”

Which, yeah, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. 

According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of this writing Kraken is doing around $127,091,377 in 24-hour trade volume. 

Maybe with the help of all that “interesting non-public info on our competitors” it claims to have gained from the published report, Kraken can find some time to issue a real response to the NY attorney general’s claims. But maybe Powell and his team are too busy enjoying the highs of those “new relationships” they’ve so publicly moved on to.