Hidden Cash was a 2014 multi-city project founded by Jason Buzi and Yan Budman using the

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account of the same name. On May 22, 2014, Hidden Cash began hiding money in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and tweeting out clues using the handle. Followers are encouraged to tweet a photo of themselves with the money they find, and Hidden Cash retweets these. Within a week, the group expanded to Los Angeles, and the account gained national and international media attention, and hundreds of thousands of followers. Over the course of about 10 weeks, Hidden Cash did money drops in California cities including San Francisco,

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, San Jose,

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

, Burbank,

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley (California), Central Valley r ...

Riverside Riverside may refer to: Places Australia * Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania Canada * Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon * Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta * Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural mu ...

, and

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

;

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

, NV;

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, IL;

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

, TX;

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, and

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...

. In Europe, Hidden Cash did events in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...

, and

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. Events typically consisted of the group hiding envelopes filled with money, most often between $50 to $100 in each, in various parks. In beaches in Southern California, from Los Angeles to San Diego, the group would hide money in Angry Birds toys or Pez dispensers. Pez dispensers were also used for the group's final drops at Coney Island and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York. The number of participants in every scavenger hunt type event typically ranged from 200 to over 3000. A July event at a city park in

Whittier, CA Whittier () is a city in Southern California in Los Angeles County, part of the Gateway Cities. The city had 87,306 residents as of the 2020 United States census, an increase of 1,975 from the 2010 census figure. Whittier was incorporated in ...

resulted in $5000 worth of property damage, which the group reimbursed the city for. The group also sponsored free ice cream on July 4 at

Ben and Jerry's Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry's, is an American company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, the company went from a single ice cream ...

in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, DC. On Monday, August 4, the group bought $1000 worth of groceries for shoppers in the Bronx, NY. Hidden Cash encourages its followers to "pay it forward". Dozens of copycat accounts have sprung up around the world, most using "Hidden Cash" as part of their name, and many doing similar events in their local area. On August 12, 2014, Hidden Cash creators Jason Buzi and Yan Budman announced that they were discontinuing the current phase of cash drops effective immediately. Buzi stressed that although the current iteration of Hidden Cash had ended, he remained hopeful that the next phase of "fun and giving" could soon be underway. At the time of the announcement, the original Twitter account @hiddencash had 720,000 followers. By mid-2015, Buzi clarified that Hidden Cash is not active. As of April 2020, the Hidden Cash Twitter account has recently begun giving money to followers via guessing contests.

References

Secret Millionaire Behind HiddenCash Treasure Hunt Announces London Giveaways Next
''The Telegraph''. Accessed, June 20, 2014. *http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/cashtomato-money-giveaway-turns-rotten-union-square-riot-article-1.306399

External links

*{{Twitter, HiddenCash, @HiddenCash
Definition HiddenCash France
by startu
speed-cashcache.com
* 2014 in San Francisco Events in San Francisco