After 50 Cent made the move to accept Bitcoin for his album “Animal Ambition,” he became the first rapper to become a cryptocurrency millionaire.
Bitcoin Millionaire
Earlier this week, the celebrity gossip site TMZ reported that 50 Cent had earned roughly 700 BTC after making the decision to accept the cryptocurrency for his album. It turned out to be a smart move for the rapper, as payments that initially amounted to $400k are currently worth between $7 million and $9 million.
50 Cent has recently confirmed his Bitcoin millionaire status by reposting the TMZ article to Instagram with the caption “Not Bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me.” He also mentioned that he had actually forgotten about the pile of Bitcoin that had piled up since the release of Animal Ambition move. Forgetting about it rather than selling seems to have paid off, however, as a payment from $400k to almost $9 million is exponential, and that value may only continue to grow.
This isn’t the first time 50 Cent has hit it big in terms of investments, with a pretty successful history as a businessman in addition to his rap career. He was an early investor in the water company Glaceau, which was later acquired by Coca Cola for $4.1 billion. Coindesk reports that 50 Cent maintains a diverse investment portfolio that includes a clothing line, real estate, and dietary supplements among other businesses.
This seems to have been a repeat of his previous successes, where 50 Cent was able to recognize the potential of Bitcoin and amass a large quantity that ended up being worth a huge amount more than he initially expected. No one anticipated that Bitcoin would climb as high as it has, and despite a rather sharp drop since the record high in December, it’s still performing far better than it had previously and has already showed some signs of recovery.
Although 50 Cent was the first rapper bitcoin millionaire, he isn’t the first musician to accept the new form of currency. Coindesk reports that other music artists have taken the same step, such as the rock group Mastodon who recently started taking Bitcoin payments via BitPay. In November of last year, Icelandic artist Bjork also noted that her upcoming “Utopia” album would be purchasable using several different cryptocurrencies.
A Risky Investment
While 50 Cent is the first rapper to become a bitcoin millionaire, his investment is anything but a sure thing. While his holdings that initially amounted to 400k have since ballooned to multiple millions of dollars, there’s always the possibility that it will all come crashing down sooner rather than later. As mentioned above, Bitcoin reached a record high near the end of December. Just a week later, however, there was a massive crash that caused many recent investors to lose a good amount of money. At the time of this article, the price of Bitcoin is around $11226, which is a far cry from the near $20000 we saw in December. While the currency has overall been on an upward trajectory, there’s always a possibility that it will continue to crash even further.
While 50 Cent is probably not hurting for money due to the rest of his investments and he can probably afford to hold onto his money and see if the price will continue to bounce back, that isn’t an option for the majority of investors. This recent downturn in price reduced the value by almost 50% and many people have had to cut their losses in fear. It just serves as another reminder that while cryptocurrencies have the potential to make smart investors a lot of money, the market is very unpredictable and it’s just as easy to lose as it is to gain.
As a successful rapper with a number of other investments paying off nicely, 50 Cent was able to take advantage of the opportunity Bitcoin had to offer and it has paid off handsomely. Whether he decides to sell and actually take advantage of that huge amount of money, or whether he tries to ride it out to see if the price will bounce back remains to be seen. Either way, his earnings are a lot higher than the initial value of $400k, and it’s unlikely the value will drop that low anytime soon.
