Rapper Akon Partners With Social Crypto Platform Roll

Rapper and cryptocrypto entrepreneur Akon today announced a partnership with social money platform Roll.

His entourage will provide support to the African influencers who create their own cryptocurrencies on Roll; new creators can also choose to donate some of their token supply to Akon’s business ventures.

Roll, founded by Bradley Miles, a former CoinDesk analyst, is a social money platform that lets content creators, influencers, celebrities and athletes mint cryptocurrencies in their own name. It claims its social tokenstokens sum up to a quarter of a billion dollars in value; it launched last summer. 

Roll’s influencers can distribute this crypto to their own communities, who in turn can use it to buy anything peddled by the influencer or HODLHODL the coin as a kind of speculative bet on the influencer’s success. 

The sudden rise of the Ethereum-based ‘social token’

You can’t buy the heart of Laurel Driskill, who runs an Instagram account with 230,000 followers under the name “sugarboogerz.” But for $0.000987 per token, you can buy her Ethereum-based 'social token,' the $TINGLE, and invest in it. Driskill is beloved for creating ASMR videos, enjoyed by those for whom the sounds of whispering, tapping, and masticating caused untold pleasures. In mid-2019, she discovered a new way to tap into her fans’ adoration: creating her own cryptocurrency.  Super-fans c...

Crypto marketer Alex Masmej and Instagram ASMR influencer Laurel Driskill are among its 260+ signups. Masmej released a rap song with Ja Rule, the rapper who co-founded Fyre Festival.

Akon is big into crypto. He has his own cryptocurrency, Akoin, which will power Akon City, a plush residential area near the capital of Akon’s native Senegal. He hopes this coin, which is based on the Stellar cryptocurrency, will become the financial backbone of all of Africa; among services offered are crypto remittances, salaries and an exchange. 

Through the Akon partnerships, new signups to Roll—hand picked by Miles himself—can “allocate a percentage of their newly-minted social money to help develop and launch more UN-backed Akoin-Effect Opportunity Hubs.” 

The man who sold fractional shares in himself

Alex Masmej dreams of being a Silicon Valley demi-god. And the 23-year-old Parisian sold himself via an ICO last week to reach that lofty goal. More specifically, Masmej is selling tokens—called $ALEX—so that true believers in Alex Masmej can buy fractional shares in him and his success.  Thus far, 30 investors participated in the ICO for $ALEX, which generated $20,092 for his voyage across the Atlantic, he claimed. The token sale ended on April 12, after 5 days. According to CoinGecko, one $ALE...

Akon will use the money to run centers in Kenya, Senegal and Ghana that offer “access to AI/blockchain-based online work” and crypto training courses. The Kenya center is expected to open later this year. 

Sid Kalla, CTO of Roll, said in a statement, “It’s important to reach beyond the immediate crypto-native audience and start thinking deeply about how everyday people will really use and embrace Ethereum and other blockchain technology.”