Marco Santori, Kraken’s chief legal officer, has resigned after nearly five years, hinting at a possible role in the Trump administration. While continuing as a senior advisor to Kraken, Santori praised regulators and highlighted Kraken’s legal achievements.
Marco Santori, the chief legal officer at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, resigned on Wednesday.
In his resignation letter, he made fun of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and seemed to make peace with regulators by calling them “lovely people.” This gave rumors that he will soon be running for a job in the Trump administration more weight.
The experienced lawyer ran Kraken’s legal department for almost five years. He has agreed to stay with the company as a top advisor and help it build a “global advisory council.”
During the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) boom, Santori became well-known for his work on the simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) project.
SAFT was seen as a way to make sure that token sales followed the law. At the time, Santori was a partner at the law company Cooley LLP. In 2020, he was hired as the top lawyer at Kraken.
In his farewell message, he talked about all of Kraken’s legal successes and acknowledged the difficulties of debanking and fighting politicians who were against crypto and wanted to use Kraken workers as “political punching bags.” The most surprising part of Santori’s farewell speech might have been when he went on and on about how “lovely” the inspectors he worked with were.
“I am sorry to disappoint the revolutionaries in the crowd, but I have now met every financial regulator on the planet and can say with perfect authority that they are, by and large, lovely people,” Santori said. “Okay, maybe not that one guy,” he added – an apparent reference to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
The statement about regulators, which was surprisingly positive, adds some weight to the Trump rumors. At the time of publication, Bitcoin.com had not heard back from Santori when they asked if he was interested in a part in the new administration.
There aren’t many details about Santori’s new advisory role yet, but Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi made it clear that Santori’s job won’t just be for fun.
“When people leave a company and mention they’ll be advising, it’s often just a polite exit note, but that’s not the case here,” Sethi posted on X. “I’m excited to build our senior global advisory council with him and to continue learning from his guidance as we move forward together.”
