Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has announced that he’s been a bitcoin millionaire for quite some time and just didn’t know it. Or at least, he’d forgotten he was. The rapper and actor revealed that he forgot he was sitting on a stack of 700 bitcoins, having taken them from some fans as payment for his 2014 album, Animal Ambition.
Citing at the time that he wanted to “stay with the times,” according to IBTimes, when 50 Cent released said album four years ago he allowed fans to pay for it with the flagship cryptocurrency. At the time bitcoins were worth around $660 each and ultimately represented a reasonable portion of the rapper’s earnings from the album: Around half a million dollars. Today though, with bitcoin worth north of $10,000 each, that’s a much more sizable amount.
Indeed with around 700 bitcoins in total, 50 Cent’s cryptocurrency fortune is worth close to $8 million, a fact that he recently celebrated on his Instagram account, citing the TMZ article that broke the story.
“Not bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me,” he said.
Although 50 Cent has been one of the more successful rappers in recent decades, he has faced his own share of financial difficulties. He famously filed for bankruptcy in 2015, though maintained hold of properties and even posted images of himself around the time with stacks of cash. Although he still had that 700 bitcoin then, it was actually worth less than when he was first paid with it, equating to less than $200,000.
Today though, 50 Cent is very firmly part of the bitcoin millionaires club. He may want to hold on to it too, as some experts we recently spoke to believe that within the next few years it could be worth upwards of 10 times what it is today.
50 Cent isn’t the only person to find themselves surprise millionaires thanks to early cryptocurrency investment. Some of the saddest cases, however, are when people realize too late. Bitcoin lost to landfill due to owners scrapping old computers is not uncommon. It’s why estimates suggest as much as $30 billion worth of bitcoin may have been lost over the years.