Hey GCs, Want That Compensation in Cash or Cryptocurrency?
At least one company is seeking a general counsel who will get compensated in Ethereum. As crypto booms, there could be more to come.
August 29, 2018 at 08:30 AM
3 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Corporate Counsel
In-house counsel have already started entering the fast-growing, complicated world of cryptocurrencies.
But legal leaders aren't just taking jobs in companies that work with crypto—some are actually getting paid in it. Or will be, once they're hired.
One such offer was posted by blockchain network organization district0x. The company is seeking a GC and says the salary will be “paid in Ethereum (but denominated in dollars!),” meaning the salary will be listed in dollar amount but actually paid in crypto.
According to the posting, the hired GC also will receive an “additional cryptocurrency-based compensation package,” a hardware wallet to store all that Ethereum and a ”firsthand look into the birth of an industry.” The GC will lead global privacy protection initiatives and develop service agreements and contracts.
Although the pay is certainly unique, some requirements to work at district0x as GC don't look so different from other companies' standards for prospective GCs. Candidates should have a JD, a bar membership, strong writing skills and in-house experience in the fintech space or in dealing with financial regulations and compliance.
But there are added requirements, such as the ability to understand cryptographic technologies and “an insatiable drive to work at the bleeding edge of new, booming industry.”
GCs who work in crypto are navigating an oddly regulated space—often, crypto companies aim to comply with laws that weren't originally designed for virtual currency.
As the district0x's posting says, “You will face questions no one has answered and challenges no one has solved. It's no longer enough for us to stay abreast of the trends in the legal world. We want to set them.”
Crypto payment for legal work may be relatively new in the in-house sphere, but some outside counsel, including Perkins Coie and Frost Brown Todd, have accepted bitcoin payments already, in some cases as early as 2013.
Firms lawyers told Legaltech News in January that getting payments in bitcoin has its perks—it's fast, anonymous and opens up the client pool—but it can also be unpredictable.
“Lawyers are typically very risk adverse and tend to be on the side of certainty, so I think that's probably one of the biggest issues for them in accepting bitcoin as a fee,” Carol Van Cleef, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who does crypto work, told Legaltech in January. “How do you price it? When do you price it? How do you ensure you're minimizing any downside risk in a volatile trading market?”
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