For about a month, 50 Cent was rap’s first Bitcoin millionaire. In January, it surfaced that the 700 or so coins he’d made selling his 2014 album, Animal Ambition, via the leading form of cryptocurrency had increased wildly in value, from a few hundred apiece to $10,000 each. Suddenly his stake was worth over $7 million. Underscoring how much of an afterthought (or a punchline) Bitcoin had been just a few years ago, the rapper wrote on Instagram that he’d forgotten all about “that shit.” But by February, 50 denied he still owned any cryptocurrency so that he could file for bankruptcy.

Part of the beauty of Bitcoin is that there’s little way to know who has it, how much, and what they’re spending it on; it’s why crypto has been used widely to sell and buy drugs. In that sense, crypto’s values seem to align with rap’s: there is no snitching. Quickly 50’s story captivated the public imagination. Here was the kind of absurd get-rich scheme chronicled in rap songs, playing out in real life.

Even with cryptocurrency still in its infancy, rap has already had a hand in shaping its perception. Whether it’s 50’s windfall, Nas’s push for crypto legitimacy, or Martin Shkreli’s further punchline-making (he claims he was scammed out of $15 million trying to buy The Life of Pablo in Bitcoin), the connection between the digital currency and hip-hop culture has grown and flourished over the last five years. Their relationship is built on shared interests in privacy, protection, and self-promotion. It is shaped by rap’s ongoing obsessions with hustling and trend-setting, so much so that cryptocurrency has quietly crept into the music itself. In an ecosystem where the concept of “new money” is widely celebrated, perhaps it is not surprising at all to see the currency banking on the promise of the future take hold.

Rap’s relationship with crypto began in 2013, before the currency had captured the public imagination. Snoop Dogg expressed interest in taking Bitcoin for an upcoming album. Donald Glover, doing promo behind Because the Internet, endorsed Bitcoin as the currency of the future: “Being backed by gold seems very old and nostalgic to me. Being backed to a Bitcoin, which takes time to actually make and there’s this equation that has to be done, that feels realer to me and makes more sense,” he told Time. By the following year, there was Coinye West, an altcoin designed after a “South Park” skit using the rapper as a punchline; West was less taken with the Bitcoin alternative than the media was, naturally, and successfully sued.

While other rappers dabbled, Nas positioned himself at the center of the cryptocurrency push. At SXSW in 2014, he hosted a panel championing digital currency alongside Ben Horowitz, the leading venture capitalist whose friendship with the rapper could be described as a well-known bromance. It is through Horowitz that Nas has become more involved with Bitcoin specifically, helping to raise millions in funding for BlockCypher, a startup that provides services for Bitcoin developers. Nas went as far as telling Coindesk, “Bitcoin will evolve into an industry as big, if not bigger, than the internet.”

In the years since Bitcoin’s rise, rappers have leveraged their personal currency into actual currencies. The hip-hop brand most eager to see its emblem on the digital coin is Wu-Tang Clan, seemingly bringing the "Chappelle’s Show” Wu Financial skit to fruition. Ghostface Killah created a cryptocurrency called CREAM (named for the Wu-Tang song of the same name), and through his firm Cream Capital, is looking to raise $30 million in funding and take over “more than half” the global cryptocurrency market by 2020. In March, Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s estate announced, in honor of the late MC, the “Dirty Coin,” which allows fans access to ODB’s catalog, exclusive merchandise, and more. Half the charm of these lesser-used rap cryptocurrencies are the very rap marks they bear.

Cash in its physical form is an important symbol in rap, but hip-hop is just as obsessed with being forward-thinking and enterprising. Cryptocurrency speaks to rap’s fixation with future fortunes, offering an at-times-false promise of fairer wealth distribution ungoverned by Wall Street or national politics, truly democratized online. In turn, the cryptocurrency community has embraced rappers: Who better to push their financial technology into the mainstream than the world’s most flamboyant and immoderate spenders?