US Bitcoin mining executives are earning well above their peers in the IT and energy sectors due to generous stock compensation packages, and shareholders are fighting back, according to new findings from asset manager VanEck.
Despite “aggressive compensation packages,” Bitcoin mining firm shareholders are “balking,” VanEck head of digital assets research Matthew Sigel and investment analyst Nathan Frankovitz reported on Thursday.
The researchers found that average shareholder approval for executive pay packages is just 64% compared to around 90% for S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies.
“That skepticism appears well-founded. Mining executives continue to grant themselves oversized equity awards that dilute shareholders without reliably linking pay to long-term value creation,” they added.
The researchers reviewed executive compensation across eight US-listed Bitcoin miners: Bit Digital, Cipher Mining, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Hut 8, MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms and TeraWulf.
The researchers also found that while Bitcoin miner executives earned an average of $6.6 million in 2023, this has nearly doubled to $14.4 million in 2024, which far exceeds comparable sectors such as energy and tech.
Equity-based compensation
The compensation is predominantly equity-based, with equity awards comprising 79% of total pay in 2023 and 89% in 2024, the report revealed.
Riot Platforms CEO Fred Thiel received the largest equity award at $79.3 million in 2024. This was nearly double that of MARA Holdings and Core Scientific and multiple times more than the other miner CEOs’ equity grants.
“Miner executive pay practices remain aggressive, equity-heavy, and often weakly aligned with shareholder outcomes.”
Stark disparities in executive pay
The report also highlighted stark disparities in pay-for-performance alignment. While companies like TeraWulf and Core Scientific paid executives just 2% of their market cap growth, Riot Platforms paid 73% of its market cap increase to named executive officers, totaling $230 million in 2024.