Surojit Chatterjee was just three years into a five-year contract.
Coinbase's stock may have dumped about 85% of its value in 2022, but that didn't stop the top U.S. crypto exchange's chief product officer from leaving the company with a huge windfall.
Based on SEC filings, Surojit Chatterjee will leave the company about $105 million richer on Feb. 3, DL News reported.
That's before the nearly 250,000 options that will be allowed to vest as he acts as an adviser to the company throughout 2023 — worth another $8.7 million. He has departed after three years on a five-year contract.
While his salary was nearly seven figures, the vast majority of it came from stock options combined with a Coinbase policy that forced top executives to exercise those options and sell stock on a regular basis. Which is not a bad thing when his exercise price was well under $19 and Coinbase's shares spent most of 2021 between $225 and $250, and spiked above $340.
COIN has since dropped to $53.56 as of Jan. 24, 2023, from the $252 at which it began 2022.
High and Low
Back when Coinbase went public with a Nasdaq listing in April 2021, Bloomberg noted that his five-year contract — which dated to the beginning of 2020 — was worth $646 million. But that was at a launch share price of $342.
In the Nov. 22 LinkedIn post in which he announced his plans to depart Coinbase, Chatterjee said he was leaving largely to spend more time with his family, pointing to the death of his mother and an Alzheimer's diagnosis for his father in 2022. He added:
"Coinbase shall always remain very close to my heart, and I will continue to be inspired by Coinbase's mission to increase economic freedom in the world."
