With Web3 abound and infrastructure to support decentralized finance strengthening, cryptocurrency will be key to the ecosystem. David Ripley, COO of Kraken talks about the value the company places on security to minimize risk, combat issues of solvency, and how expanding into regions, and facilitating multiple currencies has contributed to its growth and adoption. Understand the evolution of the traditional wallet through this interview.

David Ripley is the COO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. We talked to David to learn more about how Kraken thinks about its positioning in the cryptocurrency market, how Kraken thinks about layering on new web3 and DeFi products, and how cryptocurrency exchanges are evolving as they lose their monopoly on the crypto on-ramp to DeFi and other products.

1. How does Kraken differentiate itself from other exchanges like Coinbase, FTX, and Binance? What are some of the core customer segments your platform attracts? Which use cases do you do better than your competitors?

2. What’s your take on decentralized exchanges which constitute a larger portion of the market today? Do you compete for the same customer segments? How do decentralized exchanges relate to your work?

3. When the exchange started, a lot of the product-market fit came from the fact that it was the first on-ramp to crypto that worked with Euro. Your platform has a strong presence in Europe which is your core customer base. Where will Kraken focus its future growth between the US, Europe, and the rest of the world?

4. Kraken’s competitors are taking on celebrity endorsements to make themselves known in North America. What are your thoughts on advertising? Why haven’t you taken that route? How would you want to make yourself known as an exchange given your expansion plans?

5. How is this universe of investable assets and new financial services such as flash loans expanding? How do you feel about rolling out these new types of products at Kraken?

6. Do products like staking and futures trading form a meaningful percentage of revenue for Kraken? What's the strategy around these kinds of products moving forward?

7. For most users today, interacting with a crypto exchange or a wallet is their introduction to the crypto ecosystem. How do you see that potentially evolving over the next few years?

8. Does the number of employees getting paid partially in crypto constitute a large portion of your workforce? Are other companies seeing greater employee demand for compensation in crypto? What’s your observation here?

9. Given the current crypto bear market, how does the role of an exchange like Kraken change as compared to in a bull market?

10. There are concerns about the solvency of crypto exchanges in these volatile times. What would happen to crypto stored on these exchanges? Can they protect users' crypto in the face of insolvency?

11. What are your views on the custodial wallet versus non-custodial wallet debate? What are some of the tailwinds driving growth of custodial wallets? What are the drivers for fast-growing non-custodial wallets like MetaMask?

12. How have user journeys with wallets changed over time? Do people tend to stick with one type of wallet or do they switch back and forth between different types? What factors help either case?

13. What’s the impact of larger traders or whales on crypto liquidity? How do they affect your exchange as the market speeds up or slows down?