The rapid growth of cryptocurrencies has been primarily influenced by adoption first by retail investors but largely by institutional investors like Paypal, Microstrategy, Morgan Stanley including Wall Street behemoths like Guggenheim and Grayscale. Then comes national-level adoption with El Salvador as the pioneer among countries worldwide.
With the spike in the price of BTC (bitcoin), the most dominant digital asset in the crypto world today, well-known personalities like politicians, business tycoons, and even celebrities have joined the bandwagon. This has led to a BTC (bitcoin) price rally including major cryptocurrencies like ETH (ethereum), BNB (Binance Coin), XRP (Ripple), LTC (litecoin), and DOGE (dogecoin). The risk of cryptocurrencies due to their volatility has not hindered investors in pouring in their money in an industry once regarded as a bubble. In recent data by Coinmarketcap, the industry has now reached a market cap of $2.8T.
Let’s take a look at some celebrities who own these digital assets. We will also be including some details on how they stumbled into cryptocurrencies and what was their motivation in investing.
Unveiling of Celebrity Crypto Holders
Let’s start with the unveiling of celebrities who have cryptocurrencies in their investment portfolios. Some of them have also endorsed these digital assets that have contributed to their growth.
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. in real life and he is an American rapper, songwriter, media personality, actor, and businessman. He rose to fame in 1992 when he was featured on Dr. Dre’s successful solo singe “Deep Cover” and solo album titled “The Chronic”. His debut solo album “Doggstyle”, produced by Dr. Dre under Death Row Records which was released in 1993 became a hit and topped the popular album charts. In 1994, it was already certified quadruple-platinum after selling 80,000 copies. In the same year, he was also starred in a short film titled “Murder Was the Case”. In 1996, his album second album “The Doggfather” became another success after it was certified as double-platinum in 1997 and the rest was history.
Today, Snoop Dogg is now one of the richest and most influential personalities in the celebrity world. In 2013, he started investing in BTC (bitcoin) and became one of the early adopters. On Dec. 2, 2013, he announced in a tweet, that he will be accepting BTC (bitcoin) as payment. In 2014, he started investing in tech companies and was one of the early investors of Robinhood and Reddit.
On Feb. 7, he officially became one of the DOGE (dogecoin) compatriots along with Elon Musk after he posted a photoshopped cover of his seventh studio album with the caption “Snoop Doge.”
@elonmusk pic.twitter.com/KElwKghpei
— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) February 6, 2021
The post received 218,000 likes and was retweeted 40,900 times. With tweets coming from himself, “Dogefather” Elon Musk, and fellow DOGE (dogecoin) compatriot Gene Simmons, Kiss’s frontman, the price of the dog-meme token surged to 55% sending it to a spot along with top cryptocurrencies BTC (bitcoin) and ETH (ethereum) and recording its all-time high.
His crypto investment even spawned to NFTs, the newest craze in the crypto space. On Mar. 30, he announced the launching of his own NFT collection “A Journey with the Dogg” under a partnership with Crypto.com.
He owns CryptoPunk’s most valuable profile picture NFTs worth around $4.6 million along with his other Crypto Punks NFT collectibles. He also owns ten Meebits NFTs, 3D avatars created by CryptoPunks.
Gene Simmons
Born as Chaim Witz, he is the bassist and co-lead singer of the rock band Kiss. He co-founded the band with Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss in the early 70s. He is also known for his stage persona The Demon. Born in Haifa, Israel, to Jewish immigrants from Hungary. His mother Florence Klein (née Flóra Kovács) was a survivor of the Holocaust along with some of his family members. His father Ferenc “Feri” Yehiel Witz, was a carpenter by profession. Her parents later separated due to issues with money and her mother raised her alone. He spent his childhood in Tirat Carmel until he and his mother moved to the United States and settled in New York City.
His first band was Missing Links formerly known as Lynx. After the band disbanded, he formed Long Island Sound. He then joined Bullfrog Bheer where they recorded a demo, “Leeta”. This was later included on the Kiss box set.
In 1970, together with Stanley Eisen a.k.a. Paul Stanley, they formed the rock band “Wicked Lester”. After failing to fire the other band members, they quit and scouted for a drummer to form the “ultimate rock band”. They later met Peter Criss and started out as a trio.
In January 1973, they founded the rock band “Kiss” and in February 1974, they released their self-titled album “Kiss”. Despite several unsuccessful attempts, the rock band is now one of America’s award-winning rock bands of all time. The band sold more than 100 million records worldwide, including 25 million RIAA-certified albums.
Simmons has a rag to riches story. From poverty, he has now a total net worth of $450 million and is one of the top 15 richest rockstars to date. With this huge wealth, he began investing in cryptocurrencies. In an interview with CNBC, he revealed that he made his dip in crypto after his conversation with Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Tyler Winklevoss.
“I went in big. I put in a few million into Bitcoin when it was around $10,000.”
And when the price of BTC (bitcoin) plunged to $30K in May, he went to purchase more.
“When there was a big dip and it went down to under $30,000 or something, I put in more.”
In a tweet he made on Feb. 6, the rockstar revealed that he made a six-figure purchase of DOGE (dogecoin). He contributed to the rise of the altcoin together with his Dogecoin compatriots Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg.
I bought Dogecoin…six figures
— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) February 5, 2021
When asked what took him so long to invest in crypto in an interview with Bitcoin.com, Simmons replied that it takes some time for the older generations to understand the fundamentals of these digital assets and oftentimes they never truly understand. For his part, he dedicated some time to study about Satoshi Nakamoto and these virtual assets.
“I did a little research about Satoshi and where he came from and what it was.”
Although he admitted that the technicalities about crypto are not something that can be easily understood, the elimination of third parties like banks is one of the things that strikes him about cryptocurrencies.
“I don’t believe for a second that most people understand what cryptocurrency is, what it is designed to do, but it is immediate and you don’t have to deal with banks— I like that.”
So far, he already invested in 14 different cryptocurrencies like BTC (bitcoin), ETH (ethereum), LTC (Litecoin), DOGE (dogecoin), XRP (Ripple), and ADA (Cardano).
Jamie Foxx
Spider-Man super villain “Electro” is not only an investor but has gone as far as promoting. But before jumping on how he got to crypto, let’s start with his career as a multi-talented artist. The 54-year old actor is known as Eric Marlon Bishop in real life who hails from Texas, USA. He was adopted by his maternal grandparents after his parents separated shortly after his birth. At a young age, he has already shown his interest in music. Later on, he received a scholarship and went to United States International University to study classical piano and music theory. While at it, he also began performing at local comedy clubs where he impersonates former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, boxer Mike Tyson, and comedian Bill Cosby. He then changed his name to a gender-neutral name Jamie Foxx. His character Wanda, an ugly, sexually aggressive woman impressed the creator and star of the show “In Living Color” Keenen Ivory Wayans earning him a regular job.
In 1996, he got his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show and in 1997 he was starred in a sex comedy movie “Booty Call”. But he finally rose to fame with his role in the film “Any Given Sunday”. And in 2005, he earned his first academy award as Best Actor for his 2004 movie “Ray” where he portrayed the role as “Ray Charles”, an American multi-talented musician. He then starred in different movies which including Collateral in 2004 where he was cast along with Tom Cruise.
He made a debut as a musician in 1994 with Peep This, an album he produced and composed. In 2005, he was featured in the Kanye West hit single “Gold Digger”. While doing acting and singing, he did some voice over for the computer-animated children’s comedies Rio and its sequel Rio 2.
Foxx has now a net worth of $150M and to date, he has 4.6M followers in his Twitter account. Why and how did he enter the crypto industry? In 2017, Foxx joined a bunch of celebrities as an endorser for ICO where he promoted “Cobinhood”, a free crypto exchange that he actively promoted in his tweets.
Looking forward to participating in the new @cobinhood Token! ZERO fee trading! #CryptoCurrency #BitCoin #ETH – https://t.co/1XFiosn22S pic.twitter.com/A7es0C2Rxr
— Jamie Foxx (@iamjamiefoxx) September 18, 2017
But his entry was met with criticism from investors in the industry at that time including Affirm CEO Max Levchin for fear of the crypto bubble and a possible crackdown by regulatory bodies.
Maisie Williams
An English actress who debuted as the lead role Arya Stark in the successful HBO epic medieval fantasy drama series Game of Thrones. She received two nominations for the show which Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her excellent performance and had so far become a global sensation. In 2015, She won the 2012 Portal Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television and became the youngest to receive the award at the age of 15.
The award-winning actress also ventured into entrepreneurship. In 2019, she launched her social media platform Daisie, a multi-media networking app for artists and creators who are particularly getting started in their careers.
In November 2020, she conducted a poll in her Twitter account and asked her followers if she could invest in BTC (bitcoin).
should i go long on bitcoin ?
— Maisie Williams (@Maisie_Williams) November 16, 2020
Her tweet received responses from the biggest crypto proponents including Elon Musk, Mike Novogratz, and Barry Silbert. Although the result indicates that 53.4% advised her not to, in another tweet, she thanked her followers for their advice but decided to buy the cryptocurrency became the latest celebrity to join the industry at that time.
thank you for the advice. i bought some anyway. https://t.co/mhZiVoN6vy pic.twitter.com/XeU1KkfuXy
— Maisie Williams (@Maisie_Williams) November 17, 2020
And that was the beginning of her journey to the world of cryptocurrencies. At the time of her purchase, BTC (bitcoin) was only at $14,000 to $15,000. The price of the cryptocurrency began to surge. With the current price of BTC (bitcoin) at $42,200, her portfolio has increased by 180% of the amount she invested.
Kanye West
An American rapper, record producer, and fashion designer, and the estranged husband of famous reality star Kim Kardashian after the couple recently filed for divorce. West who hails from Atlanta, Georgia is the son of Ray West, one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a former Black Panther. At 13, he wrote a rap song called “Green Eggs and Ham”. He started out in “a little basement studio” where a microphone hung from the ceiling by a wire clothes hanger with support from his mother. He then met producer/DJ No I.D who became his mentor. After dropping out of college, he pursued his production career in the mid-90s. He also became a member of various rap groups including the Go-Getters. He got his biggest break as a producer in 2000 after producing artists for Roc-A-Fella Records.
As a singer, his song “Gold Digger” sold more than 3,000,000 copies in the United States in January 2011 and was ranked 63 on the Top 100 Billboard Hot 100 Songs of all time. It is also one of the best-selling singles in the United States.
Coming out from a $44 million debt, the 44-year old artist has a total net worth of $6.6 billion in a report by Bloomberg in March. In a report by Financial News in March, West was named as one of the celebrities who are more likely to invest in BTC (bitcoin). Another news circulated in April about his supposed plans to invest heavily in BTC (bitcoin) along with Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
On Oct. 11, a mural of American rapper Kanye West “YeahProbablyNothing.com” painted by Artist Jason Peterson was launched as an NFT on the Avalanche blockchain.
On Nov. 10, a tweet by Shiba Inu’s founder left crypto investors in awe.
Good choice @kanyewest
— Shytoshi™ (@ShytoshiKusama) November 9, 2021
Could this mean that West has invested in the dog-meme token? No comment was made by the rapper so far.
The list of celebrities who have either invested or promoted continues to rise. And with the bullish market trend, this is unlikely inevitable as investors seek profitable investments. Despite the risk of crypto investments, investors swarm the market to take a piece of the cake as they say.
