Long before the collapse in stock prices of crypto companies this year, executives protected themselves with spectacular paydays detailed in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
With lavish pay packages that paid out even during the horrible bear market, the fine print tells an entirely different tale than their public storytelling.
Consider the executive compensation package for David Bailey, Donald Trump ally and CEO of bitcoin (BTC) treasury company Nakamoto.
Despite its 98% stock price decline, Nakamoto filed exhibit 10.15 to its August 11 form 8-K in which it admitted to paying a company that Bailey controls, BTC Consulting LLC:
- A $250,000 signing bonus
- A monthly consulting fee of $58,333
- An initial grant of 5 million NAKAstock options
- $1 million in restricted stock units
- Eligibility for $2.1 million in annual cash-based incentive bonuses
- Free use of a private jet
Shares of NAKA, which closed at $14.28 on August 11, are now worth less than $0.45 apiece. Worse, Bailey has led the company since its all-time high of $34.77 in May — and remained in charge as shares collapsed 98.7%.
Read more: Could a hostile takeover be the end of the line for Nakamoto?
Michael Saylor keeps his billions no matter how low Strategy falls
As egregious as Bailey’s pay package is, it pales in comparison to the compensation of Michael Saylor, founder of the largest crypto company trading on US exchanges besides Coinbase.
Down 60% from a peak market capitalization of $124.7 billion on July 17 to $49 billion today, Saylor has still made billions of dollars personally from leading Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy).
Thanks mostly to a special type of Class B stock that grants him 10:1 voting rights, plus awards from his founder-friendly board of stock options and convertibles, Saylor’s personal net worth is probably north of $5 billion.
He’s kept those billions despite a 61% decline in the company’s common stock over the last 12 months.
Consider another example of Anthony Pompliano’s $400 million executive compensation package from ProCap. That payday sparked a hostile shareholder letter by Paul Glazer.
Shares of Columbus Circle Capital Corp. I, a SPAC that would have taken Pompliano’s ProCap public, briefly rallied above $16 in June on initial optimism about the podcaster and media influencer.
As shares fell back to their $10 pre-merger announcement, Glazer gobbled up a 7.7% stake and publicized his staunch objection to Pompliano’s proposal.
Indeed, Pompliano structured his compensation to exit with at least $50 million personally — even if the stock price halved from $10 to $5.
He even added a $10 million cash payout for himself for any early termination without cause.
Crash-proof compensation for crypto execs
Additional examples are plentiful. During the peak of the bubble in crypto treasury companies in May, DeFi Development Corporation agreed to pay CEO Joseph Onorati an annual salary of $574,000 plus a 200% bonus possibility if the company achieved ‘WAGMI Tier’ milestones.
WAGMI is a crypto acronym for “We’re All Gonna Make It.” His stock price is down 48% since that press release.
In 2024, Core Scientific increased CEO Adam Sullivan’s personal compensation to $41.9 million, a 47x increase from 2023.
Despite this staggering increase, the company’s stock price has stagnated in 2025, trading exactly flat year to date.
At Solana treasury company Upexi, CEO Allan Marshall’s personal salary is $840,000, plus a six-month restricted stock grant of 75,000 shares and extra warrants to purchase 500,000 shares at a $2.28 strike over five years.
Despite all of this supposed motivation, Upexi’s share price collapsed to less than the value of its Solana holdings.
Like Glazer’s activist opposition to Pompliano, some shareholders have realized that they can vote against these incredible pay packages. Already, shareholders of BTC mining companies have opposed 36% of recent executive pay proposals — an oppositional voting rate that is 29% higher than the S&P 500 average.