Bitcoin used to be synonymous with drugs but now, celebrities of all stripes are turning on to what used to be the obscure money of choice for the internet’s black markets.
For instance, what if I told you that a certain Grammy-caliber rapper has accepted bitcoin for an album in 2014? 50 Cent did, and he’s just one example of the prestige Bitcoin enjoys among the movers and shakers who are at the center of Western pop culture. Here are a few examples.
Kanye West
Yes, Yeezy himself has taken interest in bitcoin (he also sued a project that created the altcoin Coinye for trademark infringement, but that’s for another story).
One of rap’s most prolific artists and producers, Kanye spoke briefly about Bitcoin in a May 2018 interview with radio personality Charlamagne. He mentioned Bitcoin twice in the interview, the second and most notable time in reference to Harriet Tubman’s becoming the new face of the $20 bill.
“That was the moment that I wanted to use Bitcoin, when I saw Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill,” he said, espousing his belief that society needs to be looking toward the future instead of the past to encourage progress.
Shortly before this interview, West famously tweeted out “decentralize,” a standalone nod to the cryptocurrency industry that its adherents treated like manna sent down from heaven.
Kanye has since remained relatively silent about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, though his tweet and 15 seconds of bitcoin commentary in the 2018 interview have become meme relics for the community.
Ashton Kutcher
’90s heartthrob Ashton Kutcher is best known for his roles in That ‘70s Show and Dude, Where’s My Car?, but he’s also one of Bitcoin’s chief proponents among the Hollywood Hills elite.
“I think bitcoins are obviously becoming more and more relevant,” he said in a talk at the 2013 TechCrunch Disrupt Conference.
“The fact that people are hacking bitcoins really hard,” he continued referring to wallet and exchange hacks, “it almost hearkens back to when banks first started and they didn’t have safe safes and people were going into the banks and just robbing money out of the safe. It actually validates the value of the money itself. I think the fact that you can buy drugs and ammo with it actually [validates] the currency itself.”
Of course, Kutcher also donated $4 million worth of XRP to Ellen Degeneres’ wildlife charity fund in 2018, so that might put him on the pooh-pooh list for some toxic maximalists. But notice that he spent XRP while hodling his bitcoin — looks like he might just “get it.”
William Shatner
Captain Kirk’s is reaching for the stars yet again.
While at first a Bitcoin skeptic (he once rhetorically tweeted, “So bit coin is a cyber snob currency…”) the retired Star Trek actor entered the space in the 2017 ICO boom (which, admittedly, has led to some enterprise blockchain fantasies).
He’s a bit of an ETH-head really, but he’s also involved himself with Solar Alliance, a Vancouver-based company which operates a solar-powered bitcoin mining farm in Illinois.
Michelle Pham
Surprisingly, most of the celebrities on this list became interested in bitcoin during the first big hype cycle in 2013 to 2014. Michelle Pham, though, is a new initiate — or, at the very least, she’s recently come out as a bitcoin supporter.
“This is why bitcoin and crypto and decentralization is the next wave. It’s the most important evolution of the internet,” the YouTube Influencer and makeup entrepreneur said recently on the “Off the Pill” podcast.
When she’s not building her multimillion dollar makeup empire, she’ll drop the occasional tidbit about bitcoin on Twitter or other social media platforms.