Bitcoin Miners Face Shareholder Backlash Over 115% Pay Hike

Investors are increasingly voicing their discontent with what they perceive as excessive compensation packages for executives in the Bitcoin mining sector. According to a recent report by asset manager VanEck, executives at US-listed Bitcoin mining companies are earning significantly more than their counterparts in the IT and energy sectors. This disparity is largely due to generous stock compensation packages, which have led to a backlash from shareholders.

The report, authored by VanEck's head of digital assets research Matthew Sigel and investment analyst Nathan Frankovitz, reveals that the average shareholder approval for executive pay packages in the Bitcoin mining industry stands at just 64%. This is a stark contrast to the around 90% approval rate seen in the S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies. The researchers attribute this skepticism to the fact that mining executives continue to grant themselves large equity awards, which dilute shareholders' value without reliably linking pay to long-term value creation.

The study examined executive compensation across eight US-listed Bitcoin miners: Bit Digital, Cipher Mining, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Hut 8, MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, and TeraWulf. The findings show that while Bitcoin miner executives earned an average of $6.6 million in 2023, this figure nearly doubled to $14.4 million in 2024. This increase far exceeds the compensation levels in comparable sectors such as energy and tech.

The compensation structure in the Bitcoin mining sector is predominantly equity-based. Equity awards comprised 79% of total pay in 2023 and 89% in 2024. Riot Platforms CEO Fred Thiel received the largest equity award at $79.3 million in 2024, which was nearly double that of MARA Holdings and Core Scientific and multiple times more than the other miner CEOs’ equity grants. This highlights the aggressive and equity-heavy nature of executive pay practices in the industry.

The report also underscores significant disparities in pay-for-performance alignment. For instance, 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. These disparities echo concerns first raised in 2022, when Riot’s shareholders rejected the firm’s say-on-pay proposal after disclosing almost $22 million in CEO compensation. In 2025, three of the eight miners faced "striking rebukes" on their executive pay proposals, indicating growing shareholder dissatisfaction.

On a positive note, six of the eight miners have adopted performance stock units (PSUs) with multi-year vesting tied to share price targets or relative total shareholder return. Most companies now support annual say-on-pay votes for increased accountability. PSUs are a type of equity compensation where executives receive company stock, but only if certain performance conditions are met. VanEck suggests that miners focus on tying bonuses to cost per coin mined, incorporating capital efficiency measures like return on invested capital, and strengthening performance requirements for equity awards with multi-year vesting.

As the Bitcoin mining industry matures into large-scale infrastructure operators, their executive compensation programs must evolve to better align with shareholder interests. The report concludes that while there are positive steps being taken, such as the adoption of PSUs and increased accountability through say-on-pay votes, there is still a need for more transparent and performance-linked compensation structures. This will help ensure that executive pay is more closely tied to the long-term value creation for shareholders, rather than being driven by excessive equity awards that dilute shareholder value.