Popular Youtuber Ali Spagnola ‘Accidentally Got Bitcoin Rich,’ Decides to ‘Pay It Forward’
On Wednesday, the popular musician and Youtuber, Alicia Dawn “Ali” Spagnola, made a new video and tweeted about how she got “accidentally bitcoin rich,” after taking a request for her project called Free Paintings. After getting a bitcoin in 2013 and checking her account eight years later, Spagnola said: “I just found out that I am bitcoin rich— This is my attempt to use it for joy.”
Ali Spagnola is a well known artist, musician, and Youtuber with over 325,000 subscribers today. During one of her more recent videos, she explained how she accidentally got “bitcoin rich” from an individual who donated $50 in bitcoin to her in 2013. A few months ago, Spagnola realized that her Free Paintings project website accepted bitcoin donations and she tried to remember why she decided to take bitcoin donations back in 2013.
In 2008, the artist and Youtuber started her project Free Paintings, where she takes requests via email so she can create a 12×12” acrylic painting for them. Spagnola has always created the artwork for free, and sends the artwork in the mail for free as well. To-date, Spagnola has created 2,700 paintings for people and over the years people have donated money to her as well. She still does the Free Paintings project to this day whenever she has time, as the waitlist is reported to be over 1,300 individuals long.
When Spagnola decided to look at her email inbox, she realized that an individual convinced her on June 25, 2013, to accept the digital currency. The original email said: “I would like to pay you $50 (in bitcoins) for your interpretation of a bitcoin- a new virtual currency that makes it super easy to send/receive money over the internet.”
The individual convinced her and so Spagnola painted him a 12×12” bitcoin painting and in the video, she shared the picture of her artwork that she designed at the time. When Spagnola originally checked the exchange rate of BTC it was well over $11k. Months later, Spagnola checked the exchange rate again, and the single bitcoin that the individual donated to her was worth $39k.
Moreover, Spagnola connected with the individual that sent her the bitcoin, and he sent her a recent picture of the painting she made framed on his wall. So the artist and Youtuber decided to blast some of her bitcoin riches on lots of art supplies and started a new project. With an expensive wood-backed canvas Spagnola created a much larger bitcoin painting as a thank you for her gift back in 2013.
“The original point of my Free Paintings project is that I want art to be for everyone, not just the elite, so I started giving it away and then people started donating for it,” Spagnola said.
The popular Youtuber further stressed:
The bitcoin [payment] part adds another layer,” Spagnola added. “Was it a $50 painting or worth thousands? Am I giving him something worthless right now? Perhaps Youtuber’s works will be in museums in the future?
Then Spagnola traveled to Las Vegas to meet the individual who paid her in bitcoin back in 2013, in order to give him the newer and much larger painting. When she met the individual at a coffee shop, he told her that the original “picture was one of his most prized possessions.”
Additionally, since Spagnola “got so lucky” she decided to “pay it forward” and do exactly what he did ten times. “I will be giving $50 in bitcoin to ten random commenters on this video,” Spagnola declared on her channel. The Youtuber Ali Spagnola’s recent bitcoin video follows a number of other popular Youtubers discussing the crypto asset phenomenon on the video-sharing platform.
Pewdiepie recently told his 107 million channel subscribers he’s been getting into cryptocurrencies and non-fungible token (NFT) asset games. The renowned Youtuber Andrei Jikh published a video in November to his 978,000 subscribers and explained that he invested over $100,000 in crypto assets. Jikh also said he also plans to follow up with that investment video.
What do you think about Spagnola’s video about her 12×12” bitcoin painting and the bitcoin payment she got increasing in value? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
