On the day the album came out, 50 Cent took part in an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit. As International Business Times reports, he talked about accepting bitcoin as a way to “stay with times.”
Even in 2014, bitcoin’s price was fluctuating wildly, vulnerable to news of government clampdowns and hackers’ attacks on exchanges. The currency’s value had topped $1,000 in 2013; when 50 Cent’s album came out in the summer of 2014, one bitcoin was worth more than $600. Today, a bitcoin is worth more than $11,000. Last month, it nearly reached $20,000.
50 Cent released Animal Ambition through his G-Unit Records, along with Virgin’s Caroline Records. His fifth album, it fell far short of the huge sales figures of his first album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. But in a unique twist, one partial explanation for that slump — the digitizing of a medium that was once exclusively material — also helps explain why its proceeds are now worth millions, as bitcoin’s value has risen to stratospheric heights.
Animal Ambition included songs such as the now-ironically-named “Chase the Paper.” 50 Cent described it to Complex magazine as being about prosperity and entrepreneurial energy.
In an update on the album’s bitcoin proceeds this week, Complex noted, “50 has proven his business acumen time and time again. It’s how he got rich and didn’t die trying.”
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Article Appeared @https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/01/24/npr-50-cent-bitcoin-album-forgotten-stake