Lengthy earlier than the collapse in inventory costs of crypto corporations this 12 months, executives protected themselves with spectacular paydays detailed in Securities and Change Fee (SEC) filings.
With lavish pay packages that paid out even through the horrible bear market, the high-quality print tells a completely totally different story than their public storytelling.
Contemplate the chief compensation package deal for David Bailey, Donald Trump ally and CEO of bitcoin (BTC) treasury firm Nakamoto.
Regardless of its 98% inventory worth decline, Nakamoto filed exhibit 10.15 to its August 11 type 8-Okay wherein it admitted to paying an organization that Bailey controls, BTC Consulting LLC:
- A $250,000 signing bonus
- A month-to-month consulting price of $58,333
- An preliminary grant of 5 million NAKAstock choices
- $1 million in restricted inventory models
- Eligibility for $2.1 million in annual cash-based incentive bonuses
- Free use of a non-public jet
Shares of NAKA, which closed at $14.28 on August 11, at the moment are price lower than $0.45 apiece. Worse, Bailey has led the corporate since its all-time excessive of $34.77 in Could — and remained in cost as shares collapsed 98.7%.
Learn extra: Might a hostile takeover be the tip of the road for Nakamoto?
Michael Saylor retains his billions irrespective of how low Technique falls
As egregious as Bailey’s pay package deal is, it pales compared to the compensation of Michael Saylor, founding father of the biggest crypto firm buying and selling on US exchanges apart from Coinbase.
Down 60% from a peak market capitalization of $124.7 billion on July 17 to $49 billion right now, Saylor has nonetheless made billions of {dollars} personally from main Technique (previously MicroStrategy).
Thanks largely to a particular kind of Class B inventory that grants him 10:1 voting rights, plus awards from his founder-friendly board of inventory choices and convertibles, Saylor’s private web price might be north of $5 billion.
He’s stored these billions regardless of a 61% decline within the firm’s widespread inventory during the last 12 months.
Contemplate one other instance of Anthony Pompliano’s $400 million government compensation package deal from ProCap. That payday sparked a hostile shareholder letter by Paul Glazer.
Shares of Columbus Circle Capital Corp. I, a SPAC that might have taken Pompliano’s ProCap public, briefly rallied above $16 in June on preliminary optimism concerning the podcaster and media influencer.
As shares fell again to their $10 pre-merger announcement, Glazer wolfed up a 7.7% stake and publicized his staunch objection to Pompliano’s proposal.
Certainly, Pompliano structured his compensation to exit with no less than $50 million personally — even when the inventory worth halved from $10 to $5.
He even added a $10 million money payout for himself for any early termination with out trigger.
Crash-proof compensation for crypto execs
Extra examples are plentiful. Throughout the peak of the bubble in crypto treasury corporations in Could, DeFi Growth Company agreed to pay CEO Joseph Onorati an annual wage of $574,000 plus a 200% bonus chance if the corporate achieved ‘WAGMI Tier’ milestones.
WAGMI is a crypto acronym for “We’re All Gonna Make It.” His inventory worth is down 48% since that press launch.
In 2024, Core Scientific elevated CEO Adam Sullivan’s private compensation to $41.9 million, a 47x improve from 2023.
Regardless of this staggering improve, the corporate’s inventory worth has stagnated in 2025, buying and selling precisely flat 12 months thus far.
At Solana treasury firm Upexi, CEO Allan Marshall’s private wage is $840,000, plus a six-month restricted inventory grant of 75,000 shares and further warrants to buy 500,000 shares at a $2.28 strike over 5 years.
Regardless of all of this supposed motivation, Upexi’s share worth collapsed to lower than the worth of its Solana holdings.
Like Glazer’s activist opposition to Pompliano, some shareholders have realized that they’ll vote towards these unimaginable pay packages. Already, shareholders of BTC mining corporations have opposed 36% of latest government pay proposals — an oppositional voting fee that’s 29% increased than the S&P 500 common.
