Though he is the managing director for Canada at the self-described “pirate” crypto-trading platform Kraken, Mark Greenberg has been spending his days tweaking the site to the satisfaction of the country’s straitlaced securities regulators.

Kraken is one of 10 domestic and international crypto platforms that, after years of operating in a regulatory grey area, met a late-March deadline to agree to follow certain rules while they pursue registration. The platforms chose to put in the work and expense to do so rather than exit the country entirely or face potential action from the country’s regulators, who have been threatening enforcement since beginning a crackdown on the sector in the spring of 2021.

In an interview with The Logic, Greenberg said Canadian Kraken users won’t see dramatic changes. By mid-June, however, the platform will shut off margin trading throughout Canada—it’s currently restricted in some provinces, he said—and is working with regulators to determine which stablecoins it can continue to list.

“We really think Canada is a great example of a regulatory model that can work,” said Greenberg, who built and led a collection of global engineering centres for Scotiabank before joining Kraken in October 2022. “We’ve had this positive, collaborative relationship with our regulator here for several years now, and are committed to that long-term relationship with them.”

Greenberg’s comments and Kraken’s actions in Canada stand in contrast with the company’s public image. One of the world’s largest and oldest crypto platforms, Kraken made headlines last year after The New York Times reported on comments posted by its now-outgoing chief executive Jesse Powell in an internal chat, calling American women “brainwashed,” and stoking debate about racial slurs as well as trans and non-binary people’s pronouns.

Powell is certainly not the only executive at a large international crypto-trading platform to espouse libertarian views and make controversial comments. Kraken, however, stands out for publishing a document stating its culture is “more pirate than professional,” pledging to “push back on government overreach” and “engage in disputes with government agencies where outdated laws are unfairly exclusionary.” 

In February 2022, the Ontario Securities Commission contacted law enforcement after Powell and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong appeared to offer advice via Twitter on how crypto users could evade Emergencies Act restrictions against the convoy protests in Ottawa.

The incident didn’t come up during registration discussions with regulators, Greenberg said. He said that after reading articles about the so-called culture wars at Kraken, he has “a really hard time actually connecting them to the reality of the company that I’ve worked at.”

Greenberg said Kraken welcomes Canada’s regulatory clarity, which allows the company to make investments in the country with confidence. “There’s a rulebook in Canada. We’re very happy to figure out how we can apply it and how we can use it,” he said.

Greenberg does have some quibbles with how Canadian securities regulators are handling crypto—“We don’t love everything about the regime that exists in Canada.” He said he’d like more clarity around stablecoin requirements and called a $30,000 investment cap on crypto assets in most provinces “a relatively arbitrary limit.”

Greenberg said Kraken has no current plans to increase its headcount of about 250 Canadian employees—a number he said makes the company one of the largest crypto employers in the country. He said any decisions about expansion will have to wait until the company has finished adjusting the platform to comply with Canadian regulators’ requirements.

Once that effort is finished, however, Greenberg wants Canadians to get to know Kraken better.

“We do believe there are lots of opportunities to expand in much more actively telling the Kraken story across Canada,” he said. “I think you’ll see us play a more active role in marketing.”