Key Takeaways
Kanye West reportedly launched the YZY memecoin, going against his promise made earlier in the year. Will it go to zero like other celebrity tokens?
U.S. hip-hop artist Kanye West, also popularly known as Ye, has reportedly launched his memecoin, dubbed YZY, on Solana [SOL]. The token mooned 1400% to $3 billion in market cap in minutes.
However, as of press time, it had dropped to $1B market size (about 70% slump) amid mixed reactions from the crypto community.
Source: YZY/USD, TradingView
Is YZY legit or another rug pull?
According to the artist, the token will power the ‘Yeezy Money’ ecosystem. Part of his X (formerly Twitter) post on the 21st of August included the contract address for the token.
Source: X
Per the website, the Yeezy Money is billed as a ‘new financial system, built on crypto rails’ and includes Ye Pay and the YZY card.
However, the community was quick to point out that the tokenomics were awful as over 80% was concentrated in the creators.
Only 20% was released for the public supply, as one user warned others not to make the mistake of buying the token.
“Why do we keep making the same mistakes over and over? Stop buying centralized rigged scams?”
In fact, analytics platform Lookonchain flagged that insiders scooped the token early enough and began dumping YZY, leading to a 70% slump.
Besides, the creator of the token could add or remove liquidity and mirror the infamous LIBRA memecoin.
In addition, the team created a resistance between $3-$4 via single-sided liquidity, further triggering the retracement.
Source: Lp4fun
At press time, YZY was valued $1.16, down from the $3.2 peak hit after it debuted. Will it face the same fate as other celebrity coins?
At the peak of the memecoin craze in 2024, several artists jumped on the bandwagon and launched tokens that went nearly to zero after a few hours or days.
In fact, even Vitalik Buterin castigated the trend for its extractive nature instead of adding value to users.
Interestingly, in February, Kanye West said that he won’t launch a coin to ‘prey’ on his fans. As such, some users weren’t sure whether the YZY token was legit.
That said, SOL appeared to have benefited from the renewed memecoin speculation. SOL rallied nearly 7% from $176 to $187, at press time.
