Coinbase said it’s increasing its compensation targets and getting rid of salary and equity negotiations from its hiring process.
Coinbase Chief People Officer L.J. Brock said in a blog post that negotiations during the recruiting process can leave underrepresented minorities and women behind in the process.
“All employees in the same position, in the same location, receive the same salary and equity offer. No exceptions,” the blog post read.
However, Coinbase did clarify that this doesn’t mean that all employees are paid the same after they start working, and that it does want varying compensations. But, “it should be solely driven by demonstrated performance and outsized impact on our company and for our customers,” the post stated.
The cryptocurrency exchange is making these moves at a time when it has grown its headcount by 100% in the last year, is devoted to being a remote-first company and recently became publicly traded.
Often, many tech companies give a new hire a four-year equity grant, but, it’s no secret that cryptocurrencies are particularly volatile. Taking this into consideration, Coinbase also plans to adopt annual equity grants that helps manage volatility and predictability for its employees. The annual grants are sized at one-year targets and vest entirely each year.
“We are also eliminating the one-year cliff from our new hire grants,” the blog post read. “We expect new hires to add value on their first day, so it only makes sense for them to start vesting rewards for their contributions.”
Coinbase plans to make the annual grants for all of its employees at one time using one share price.
In other recent crypto news, fintech startup CipherTrace has joined forces with govtech startup Schweitzer Laboratories to enable political action committees (PACs) to safely accept virtual money, otherwise known as cryptocurrency. This adds to existing methods for PACs to raise money, such as ACH, credit cards, debit cards and wire transfers, for political candidates and causes.