Cryptocurrency Celebrities: Gwyneth Paltrow Became A Bitcoin Advisor On Apple TV

Bitcoin has a new celebrity advocate: Gwyneth Paltrow. The startup behind Abra, a bitcoin-based digital wallet app often used for remittance, chose the actress to be Abra’s adviser during an episode of the Apple TV reality show Planet of the Apps. In a subsequent blog post, the startup said there could be "more to share later ” about its on-screen collaboration with Paltrow.

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"She has been a huge value add,” Abra CEO Bill Barhydt told Forbes. “She's opened up her network to us, given us valuable business advice, her insights on running a consumer business with hundreds of thousands of paying customers."

This episode gave the startup a boost on Apple's app store. On Tuesday, Barhydt claimed Abra became the first bitcoin app to be featured at the top of the iTunes store.

Paltrow isn’t the first celebrity to hop on the bitcoin train. Half a dozen Bollywood stars have been outspoken about their interest in bitcoin, including Shilpa Shetty Kundra and Nargis Fakhri. Even before this summer’s cryptocurrency boom, celebrity investors like Ashton Kutcher and the rapper Nas were investing in bitcoin businesses like BitPay and Coinbase. However, both of those early advocates are also invested in diverse digital media and technology projects. The recent flood of media attention is now attracting different types of celebrity investors to the blockchain industry.

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Boxing icon Floyd Mayweather bragged on Instagram last week about plans to make a “$hit t$n of money” on the Stox initial coin offering, an investment prediction market project backed by the Bancor protocol.

Using Instagram to promote cryptocurrency is increasingly common among influential users. The hashtag #bitcoin now appears in more than 562,102 Instagram posts. People like Mayweather and Alexander Treshchev, a lawyer involved with the Russian film industry, now use their Instagram accounts to promote bitcoin and ICOs in between pictures of luxury cars and Rolex watches.

Model Jessica VerSteeg recently founded her own cryptocurrency company, Paragon. She posted a teaser on Instagram about plans to launch a cannabis industry ICO. Her next post about bitcoin combined blockchain symbolism with luxury fashion.

It’s not certain if the new crop of celebrity bitcoin advocates and Instagram selfies will encourage wider audiences to experiment with cryptocurrency — but the ICO Mayweather promoted on Instagram reportedly raised $30 million.