Hedera has adopted a coin plan through which it can compensate employees, contractors, advisors, vendors who provide services to Hedera, and other service providers using hbars. At present, all grants that have been made under the plan have been in the form of restricted coin units (“RCUs”), whereby individuals vest into a right to receive a number of hbars over a vesting schedule, and will generally receive those hbars on or after the applicable vesting date. Hedera’s Board of Managers is responsible for approving RCU grants or authorizing Hedera officers to make RCU grants within permitted parameters.
Hedera has formally allocated 7 billion hbars to the coin plan that governs the RCUs (the “Original Coin Reserve”) to be used for grants to employees, contractors, advisors, vendors who provide services to Hedera, and other service providers. Additional hbars may be allocated to the plan with approval by the Council, and the numbers in Table 2 include an additional 1.14 billion hbars that have not yet been formally allocated to the plan but have been earmarked for that purpose. Out of the Original Coin Reserve, RCU awards covering 6.5 billion hbars have been granted, of which a total of 1.8 billion hbars have vested and been distributed pursuant to such RCU awards as of March 14, 2020.
RCU grants to employees and contractors typically follow a four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff and then monthly thereafter (i.e., no portion of the RCU award vests unless the individual continues to provide services to Hedera for one year, at which point 25% of the RCU award vests and then the RCU award vests in equal monthly installments thereafter). With limited exceptions, if an employee or contractor departs before the end of the vesting period, the unvested portion of the grant reverts to Hedera while the individual retains the right to receive any vested but undistributed hbars.[1] Hedera plans to continue providing RCU grants, including retention grants to employees, as part of its overall compensation. While the majority of grants are to employees and contractors, RCU awards covering 461 million coins (out of the total Original Coin Reserve) have been granted to advisors and vendors who provide services to Hedera, and of which 241 million hbars have been distributed pursuant to such RCU awards as of March 14, 2020. The structure of RCU grants to advisors and vendors vary depending on the terms of the particular contract. As with employees and contractors, if an advisor or vendor stops providing services, any unvested portion of the grant reverts to Hedera. Additional information about grants to founders and senior management is provided in response here.
[1] Employee and contractor grants typically provide some acceleration if service is terminated due to death or disability. Some grants to senior management also provide acceleration if there is termination without cause or the employee resigns under certain conditions (e.g., constructive termination).