Bitcoin miner IREN has approved a long-term equity package for co-CEOs William Roberts and Daniel Roberts, granting them about $700 million in restricted stock units, or RSUs. In its Form 8-K filing, the company said the awards represent roughly 5% of outstanding shares and were authorized by the board on June 30.
Each executive received 9,099,328 RSUs, bringing the combined total to 18,198,656. The grants are designed to convert into company shares over time rather than being paid as immediate cash compensation. IREN said the vesting schedule runs across six years, with the awards split into four equal tranches.
Four vesting tranches come with extra sale restrictions
The structure includes more than a long vesting period. Each tranche requires continued employment before it can vest. After vesting, the shares still cannot be sold right away, because every vested portion remains subject to an added two-year lockup.
IREN also stated that William Roberts and Daniel Roberts will not receive additional equity awards before fiscal year 2031. That condition was included in the compensation framework approved by the company.
Compensation committee reviewed several pay structures
According to the filing, IREN’s Compensation Committee reviewed multiple compensation models before recommending the final plan. The alternatives included performance-based structures, mixed incentive plans, and different vesting schedules. An independent compensation consultant also assisted the committee during the review.
The board ultimately approved the package unanimously after weighing those options. IREN said the framework was meant to balance executive retention with shareholder interests, while the extended vesting and holding restrictions limit near-term share sales.
Quarterly loss coincided with push into AI cloud services
The equity approval came after IREN reported results for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025. During that period, the company generated $184.7 million in revenue and posted a net loss of $155.4 million.
Outside its core Bitcoin mining business, IREN has been expanding into AI cloud services. The company said it signed multi-year cloud computing agreements using NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. Those contracts are expected to produce about $225 million in annualized run-rate revenue. At the time of the announcement, around 11,000 of IREN’s 23,000 GPUs had already been pre-sold under those agreements.