Rapper 50 Cent recently rediscovered close to 700 Bitcoins (Bitcoin) earned via album sales in 2014, now worth anything from $7 to $8 million, celebrity news website TMZ reported.
50 Cent (real name James Curtis Jackson III) accepted Bitcoin as payment via BitPay for his album “Animal Ambition” released back in 2014. Album sales earned the rapper approximately 700 Bitcoins – at the time, a single Bitcoin was worth close to $600, which means 50 Cent made a little over $400,000.
TMZ claims these Bitcoins lay forgotten in 50 Cent’s account for years, before being rediscovered recently.
The rapper took to Instagram to comment, “Not Bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me.”
Another post depicting the album art for “Animal Ambition” interspersed with a ‘Bitcoin accepted here’ logo was uploaded shortly afterward, with the caption “all moneys is good money over here”.
Unlike many governments, music and film industries have displayed an open and accepting attitude toward Bitcoin and its peers. Last year, singer Björk set up crypto-payment options for her album Utopia, and 45 music stars partnered with Monero to accept payments in XMR during the holiday season. In addition, famed Hollywood movie producer Christopher Woodrow announced that he would be launching a cryptocurrency called MovieCoin to fund future films.