BlockFi, a crypto lending platform, has seen some of its executive team members lose their equity stakes as part of its emergency restructuring plan last year.
The plan included borrowing $400 million from collapsed crypto exchange FTX. As a result, senior management lost around $800 million in equity. BlockFi CEO and founder, Zac Prince, was the most affected, with a loss of $412 million.
However, despite the losses, the firm approved a “retention program” by increasing salaries by up to 50% for top staff. The company stated that this was done “in the interest of retaining business critical knowledge and capabilities.”
The filing also revealed that members of the executive team had stored over $2 million in individual accounts on the lending platform in the lead-up to its bankruptcy in November.
Prince had the most significant deposit within the management team, with $1.4 million on the platform as of November 21, 2022.
However, no member of the BlockFi management team withdrew any cryptocurrency from the platform after October 14, 2022, the filing said. It also showed that management team withdrawals represented only 0.15% of the total volume in 2022.