Rapper 50 Cent Admits That He Never Actually Owned Bitcoin

About a month ago, news about 50 Cent’s secret Bitcoin stash surfaced in the pop culture scene. Apparently, the rapper had accrued over 700 Bitcoins, thanks to the sale of his 2014 studio album, Animal Ambition. 50 Cent’s holdings in Bitcoin, at today’s valuation of Bitcoin, is worth close to $7 million.

50 Cent revealed this information in an Instagram post, where he wrote, “Not Bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me.” Alongside emojis of a person shrugging and a sack of money, he added, lightheartedly, “LOL.”

Source: 50 Cent Instagram

Today, 50 Cent clarified that he did not actually make millions by accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for his 2014 album. Based on a court document on Friday, the rapper admitted that he never owned any Bitcoins in order to fit the rhetoric that he gave the court when he filed for bankruptcy back in 2015. However, when asked why he went along with the false story that TMZ crafted, 50 Cent’s answer was simple:

“So long as a press story is not irreparably damaging to my image or brand, I usually do not feel the need to publicly deny the reporting,” he said. “This is particularly true when I feel the press report in question is favorable to my image or brand.”

As much as we disapprove disinformation, we have to admit that 50 Cent’s strategy paid off. He did seem like a rich and successful early adopter of cryptocurrencies, as he was almost $14 million rich when the price of Bitcoin was at its peak in January. However, since he filed for bankruptcy in 2015, it was impossible for him to have owned any Bitcoins back then.

According to the court document obtained by The Blast, the 700 Bitcoins that 50 Cent allegedly earned from the sale of his album were “contemporaneously converted to U.S. dollars by another independent third party, and it was the converted U.S. dollars, not Bitcoins” that 50 Cent and his agency received at the end of the deal. In other words, 50 Cent never received the Bitcoins – it was the middleman taking care of the proceeds to his album sale who did.

Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether 50 Cent was lying to the bankruptcy court about his alleged Bitcoin stash, or to the media a month ago. The Instagram post, on the other hand, is now defunct.