After getting the axe from America’s largest bank, the infamous rapper Kanye West may be gravitating towards Bitcoin. 

The rapper has been spotted in multiple recent photos sporting a hat labeled “Satoshi Nakamoto” – the name of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator.

Is Kanye a Bitcoiner?

One of the photos was shared over social media on Sunday by Twitter user Quinten Francois. It shows West wearing a green jacket, rain boots, and the Satoshi hat, with a phone held to his face.

Ye West (Kanye) wearing a Satoshi Nakamoto hat after being kicked out of his bank account by JPMorgan. #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/oj2XTiQ1bC

— Quinten | 048.eth (@QuintenFrancois) October 16, 2022

Another circulated in the Daily Mail Monday, which was reportedly taken the previous day while the rapper was on a solo outing in Beverly Hills. He was repping the same hat and boots, while exiting a vehicle. 

The pictures come just after JP Morgan severed ties with the rapper, following a string of controversial social media posts that Twitter has already banned him for. However, according to The Guardian, the decision from the bank to cancel his account (and that of his clothing brand, Yeezy) pre-dates the rapper’s comments. 

West’s accounts will remain active until November 21, giving him time to transfer the accounts. 

Appearing on a podcast after being debanked, West spoke out against JP Morgan for how it treated him. 

“I put $140 million into JP Morgan and they treated me like sh*t,” he said. “So if JP Morgan Chase is treating me like that, how are they treating the rest of y’all?”

Crypto and Free Speech

West praised Bitcoin on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2020. “The bitcoin guys have a perspective on what the true liberation of America and humanity will be,” he said at the time.

Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin as a means of transmitting money without the need for third-party intermediaries like banks. By extension, this has given Bitcoin a reputation as censorship-resistant money, as only users have the power to move coins controlled by their personal private keys. 

Canada’s freedom convoy protestors used Bitcoin to bypass restrictions on its fundraising from GoFundMe in February after the government froze bank accounts associated with the movement. 

West recently agreed to buy Parler – a social media site dedicated to maintaining free speech, which also hosts an NFT marketplace. Meanwhile, Dogecoin fanatic Elon Musk has agreed to buy Twitter in hopes of making it more free speech focused.