Salaries of ApeCoin DAO Leaders Spark Community Criticism

Community members have criticized the “insane” salaries of the leaders of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that governs the ApeCoin ecosystem after the figures were disclosed in an organizational chart.

On June 10, “Vulkan,” the ApeCoin DAO secretary, published an organizational chart on Twitter that detailed the salaries of the DAO’s executive team.

This ranged from $7,000 to $75,000 per month, which shocked some community members and prompted a flurry of questions from others.

One Twitter user called the salaries “insane” and suggested that the DAO may be “burning cash on nothing.” The community member had no notion what the “special council” was doing to warrant $20,000 per month.

According to the organizational chart, the so-called “special council” manages DAO proposals. Due to this, the Twitter user also asked the community whether any proposals were enacted in 2023.

In the meantime, another community member identified as Michael tweeted that the council jobs, if performed correctly, could justify the pay for the appropriate individuals.

However, the community member added, “100k to moderate a forum and another to oversee is lols.”

One community member characterized the salaries as “insanely out of touch,” while another Twitter user accused the decision-makers of being “disconnected from reality.”

In response to the community’s concerns, Yat Siu, a board member of ApeCoin DAO, claimed in a Twitter thread that the compensation accords with the “responsibility and liability of the role.”

According to Siu, various industries pay more due to risk and liability, and he noted that the crypto and Web3 industries have a substantial amount of both.

The board member stated that, while not identical, the duties of the special council are comparable to those of executives in mid-cap companies who earn similar salaries.

“The significance and duty of care that accompany serving a multibillion-dollar DAO, along with the associated risks and liability for each member, are real and grave,” tweeted Siu.

A member of the community inquired, within the thread, whether the $20,000-per-month employees have resumes comparable to those of a public company director.

Siu responded that not all of them are conventional candidates for public board directorships, but that this is what makes DAOs so intriguing.

According to Siu, this demonstrates that individuals from non-traditional backgrounds can perform well when given a chance.