Kraken's Ripley says bitcoin's move past $80K means 'that was the bear market'
Bitcoin climbing back above $80,000 is enough for Kraken co-CEO Dave Ripley to call the bottom: "that was the bear market," he said, describing the downturn as possibly the softest in bitcoin's history.
Speaking on the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast with Spencer Nichols, Ripley said this cycle never felt like a bear market to him, and he walked through how retail and institutional customers are treating bitcoin right now. He also revisited the years when banks insisted on blockchain but not bitcoin, and argued that stablecoins have since proved permissionless systems work.
Ripley set out Kraken's expansion beyond spot trading: the exchange acquired a European bank, is diversifying revenue ahead of a planned IPO, and is pushing tokenised equities through its xStocks product. He framed bitcoin as digital gold for institutional buyers, with stablecoins opening the door to bitcoin payments.
Artificial intelligence ran through much of the conversation, from AI agents making crypto payments to how AI is changing the way Kraken itself operates. Ripley also covered the company's prop trading and pay services and what lies ahead.
The views were Ripley's own, given on the podcast; the price call is his assessment, not a forecast the publication can verify.
What it means for Pakistan: Kraken does not serve Pakistani residents directly, and Pakistan has no licensed virtual asset regime yet, so Ripley's call is a sentiment signal for local holders rather than an investable one. Any recovery in bitcoin prices tends to revive Pakistani peer-to-peer and offshore exchange activity that regulators have warned against, while the stablecoin and tokenised-equity products he touts sit squarely in the territory PVARA will have to rule on as it builds the country's VASP framework.
