Photo: Jorge Peniche
Rapper and entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle, who was tragically murdered on March 31, 2019 while standing outside his clothing store in the Crenshaw neighbourhood of Los Angeles, was one of the first mainstream artists to talk about Bitcoin. Little has been said about the connection between Nipsey and Bitcoin. I would like to change that, because he had a very unique way of looking at life and Bitcoin, which allowed me to understand the significance of the technology. More on that later.
Nipsey Hussle aka Ermias Joseph Asghedom was born on August 15,1985 and grew up in the the Crenshaw area of south Los Angeles to an African American mother and Eritrean father, who was a war refugee that came to the United States after fleeing the then-ongoing Eritrean War of Independence.
* Bitcoin the network = capital B
* bitcoin the currency = lower case b
I, too, am partly a descendant of refugees. In the third generation. Unlike Nipsey, however, I grew up in a nice part of Hamburg. Still, I felt the hunger, work ethic, and mindset that he displayed. It reminded me a lot of the conversations I had with my grandfather who fled Iran, with my Jewish friends and family who flew from all over the world and the conversations I had with my German grandparents about the horrors of the Second World War.
Pretty much all my ancestors had one thing in common: They wanted a better life for their fellow human beings. That's exactly what I want, and that's what Bitcoin makes possible. Nipsey's ideas and his view of life helped me a lot to become aware of this. In 2010 I watched a video of a young Nipsey Hussle explaining the difference between assets and liabilities, which eventually led me to buying my first bitcoin years later.
In the video, which you can watch below, Nipsey explains in "easy-to-understand" language why owning cars, jewellery and other liabilities is a distraction and why we should focus on accumulating assets instead.
There are a few things in the video I don’t agree with, especially the critique of capitalism. It is fair to say that young Nipsey was not right on all counts. But the essence of what is said is of great importance. As a 19-year-old, fresh out of school and looking for a career, his message really helped me get on the right track.
At that time, everyone around me started spending their money on cars and other consumer goods. That never interested me and intuitively felt wrong. Nipsey's remarks confirmed my intuition and prompted me to look more deeply into wealth creation. What I particularly liked about Nipsey was its authenticity. He spoke like a "street-dude", but with the wisdom of an entrepreneur delivering an important message.
Ultimately, Nipsey's statements led me to deal intensively with my consumer behaviour, to question our existing monetary system and to be open to accepting Bitcoin. Between my years at university (2012-2015) studying philosophy & ethics, business management and finally financial economics, I had multiple “touch points” with Bitcoin. Nipsey's music and interviews have always accompanied me on my journey of trying to understand Bitcoin and myself.
In 2014 I enrolled for a Masters degree in financial economics at the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. Although I always knew I wanted to get into the financial world, most traditional investors never really convinced me. I've always been shocked by their babble about modern monetary theory that says currency must be a public monopoly, and their idea of a strong central bank slowly absorbing the value created in the economy via inflation.
Finally, in the spring of 2015, at the end of my master's program, I sat in my room, somewhat frustrated, thinking about the topic of my master's thesis while listening to Nipsey's album "Mailbox Money" (2014). In the Outro of the song "That's How I Knew," he addresses the technological changes that were imminent at the time (min. 2:45):
„Life, and it's like, you know,
You can look a gift horse in the face and not know what you lookin' at
And I feel like, you know, I'm lookin' at the gift horse
I'm just one of the ones that notice what I'm lookin' at
You know what I mean? It's actually an incredible time
It's like a gold rush, it's never been a time like this in our generation
It's our equivalent of the Gold Rush with everybody movin' to California
This technology has empowered everybody
And it's giving people, you know, it's as big as you wanna make it and
You know, it's as far as you take it
And we can quote a gang of things going on in the world right now
Or just, you know, accept it as being true
But, you know, it's like, man, giants gon' crumble
Big-big companies gon' crumble
New companies gon' pop up outta nowhere and it's-it's gon' be dramatic
And I believe that“
As I sat there and thought about my thesis, it hit me like lightning. When I was dealing with Bitcoin, it always felt like I'm lookin' at the gift horse, even if no one around me thought the same. Plus, it really was like a gold rush. Between 2012-2013, bitcoin went from ∼12 $ to ∼1000$ in less than two years. The wonderful thing about it was that everyone could participate. As Nipsey said This technology has empowered everybody. Even though he wasn't talking specifically about Bitcoin in this song, but about technology in general, he inspired me to get more involved with Bitcoin. The final product was my master's thesis "Bitcoin: A qualitative study of a monetary alternative: It’s value and applications." (2015). The first master thesis on Bitcoin in the field of financial economics in Europe.
Shortly after, Nipsey started talking specifically about Bitcoin and its potential to create a fair and open financial system. As a young artist from Crenshaw he was faced with many adversities and found creative ways to deal with them. In the early 2010’s it was difficult to make money from music, as decentralised file sharing networks like Limewire and Napstar enabled consumers to download MP3 files for free.
Nipsey developed a concept he called "Proud 2 Pay" which grew out of the concept of community and was frankly the predecessor of Value 4 Value. Nipsey has always given back to his community, and wanted to show that his people would support him in return. He wanted to empower the artist, leading to the creation of Proud 2 Pay. A campaign centred around his mixtape Crenshaw (2013).
Nipsey created 1,000 copies of his signed mixtape and charged $100 for them. Every single copy was bought in under 24 hours, and he achieved his goal of creating a conversation around artistic genius and freedom and proving that his community would always show support for him. At the time, he was an up-and-coming artist. The campaign was a great success and generated many positive reactions. Rap mogul Jay Z, for example, bought 100 copies of his $100 CD Crenshaw.
“It was a concept. It was basically like, always by choice, never by force. If you are proud to pay for it, this is the price of it.” - Nipsey Hussle (2013)
Bitcoin, as the internet's native currency, enables direct payments for content (Value 4 Value). Until now, we have had to rely on paywalls, advertising and data as payment methods. Now we can pay for content we enjoy directly with bitcoin. Value 4 Value is the idea that you pay for content you find valuable. The idea is simple but sounds radical: you provide your content for free, for everyone, without access restrictions. If people enjoy it, if people get value out of it, you make it easy for people to give value back (Gigi).
Today, we have the option to send value in the form of bitcoin or satoshi, the smallest denominator of bitcoin. In 2013, Nipsey used the traditional transaction model. As far as I know, he was the first artist to offer a Value 4 Value model. Even before all Bitcoiners. For me, Nipsey’s mindset embodies Bitcoin. Freedom, prosperity, creativity, justice and community building for a meaningful analogue existence in a digital world (Tomer Strolight).
Unlike other artists, Nipsey prided himself on never leaving his community. Instead, he bought an entire block in his Crenshaw neighbourhood and upgraded it by, among other things, opening a shop for his clothing line The Marathon there, as well as offices. The Marathon brand represented Nispey's attitude. Life is not a sprint, but a marathon.
Longevity is also the ethos of Bitcoin. The number of bitcoin is fixed at 21,000,000. There will never be more. This certainty and the fact that we can preserve the value of our time and work with bitcoin allows us to save and plan for the future. The spirit of longevity, thrift and entrepreneurship is expressed in all of Nipsey's brands.
All Money In is the name of the record label and concept that he launched in 2010. The name represents his particular way of thinking. Saving to build something that has "substance" over the long term. In 2010, at the time of a hip-hop culture all about fast living and materialism, this was revolutionary. And that's what Nipsey Hussle was. A revolutionary. A revolutionary who left this earth far too early.
Nispey's sudden death in 2019 was mourned around the world. Rarely have I seen so much sympathy for someone who passed. At the time he was just breaking into the mainstream. As a musician and entrepreneur. Unfortunately, it was only after his death that the mainstream realised what a special human being he was.
In addition to being a musician, he had multiple businesses. A start-up accelerator in his neighbourhood to offer young people from disadvantaged households new opportunities. A real estate company. A fashion company. A record label,- and a technology venture focused on Bitcoin and blockchain. Nipsey was a visionary.
Nipsey thought very deeply about social issues. He was very aware of the connection between poverty and crime. When you have no money, access to the financial system or means to save and build wealth, you become pessimistic about the future and develop a high time preference. This means consuming today instead of saving for the future, which keeps you from thinking long term - and in extreme cases, you are willing to commit crimes for quick money, even if it doesn't help you in the long run. Nipsey called it “getting in survival mode”.
These are structural problems related to our monetary and financial system. Historically, when governments or central banks fail with their monetary policy, they cling to power by printing money to continue funding their activities. The population then suffers from currency devaluation, price inflation and the resulting uncertainty. While Nipsey also explicitly linked the issues he raised to other structural problems in society, he well understood that Bitcoin offered a solution. An alternative to the existing system that favours the few, excludes the many, and causes social stagnation and poverty.
The Bitcoin network is decentralised across thousands of computers around the world. No single entity controls it. The network is permissionless and accessible to everyone. There is no discrimination based on opinion, race, gender or origin and with that, it has the potential to create a fairer society with a more equitable distribution of wealth. As Nipsey predicted, the big banks are failing while Bitcoin is getting stronger and stronger. The marathon continues. We are just getting started. Rest in peace.
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