A BITCOIN BONU$
Streeters stoked at prospect
Wall Street is unveiling the bitcoin bonus for employees.
Banks and brokerages will show them the money — wads and wallets of bitcoins and cryptocurrencies to digitally juice big year-end payouts of hard cash and deferred stock awards to traders and bankers, Wall Street insiders claim.
As bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, hovered within shouting distance of $20,000 on Thursday, the Street was abuzz last week with the once unthinkable: bonuses padded up the wazoo with bitcoins. It’s a prospect that some elite pros — pulling down millions of dollars each year in conventional compensation — may welcome.
“The bitcoin bonus could be one of the methodologies in recruiting better talent into your organization,” said Bob Graham, a digital currency expert at accounting and advisory firm Friedman.
“We’ve certainly gotten a lot of inquiries from hedge funds and other asset managers looking to understand cryptocurrency a little better, as they contemplate whether or not this is a good time to enter the marketplace.”
Chatter escalated last week on the prospect of highly coveted bonuses being padded with bitcoin regardless of whether more shops enter the newfangled investment mania — joining a roster of highfrequency traders and hedge funds.
The idea of bitcoin bonuses isn’t far-fetched, according to securities attorney Aaron Kaplan, at Gusrae Kaplan Nusbaum.
Partners in some venture funds, as part of their packages, are already accepting “virtual tokens” tied to initial coin offerings now that the rising value of cryptocurrencies has been demonstrated, Kaplan told The Post. “Sure, it is definitely a possibility,” he said of the bitcoin bonus on Wall Street.
The bonus possibility ratcheted up with the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the CME Group launching bitcoin futures contracts. The CBOE contract under ticker symbol XBT begins Sunday evening, and will be equal one bitcoin; and five bitcoins will trade at the CME under ticker symbol BTC beginning next Sunday night.
“We saw a tremendous boost in the bitcoin price once the CME came out and said it was opening up the futures contract,” New York-area commodities trader Dmitry Pichkar said. “It was really kind of endorsing bitcoin as a type of commodity that people, including the institutions, will be able to participate in.”
There would be some hurdles to clear — legal, technical and practical — before bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are broadly mixed in with hard currencies as part of any mainstream Wall Street employee bonus schemes.
One factor is the downside risk on plunging crypto prices.