August 21, 2025 - Kanye West announced the launch of a token on X, proclaiming "YEEZY TOKEN IS HERE. A NEW BLOCKCHAIN BASED ECONOMY," along with an official website URL. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, also took notice of the YZY project, urging Kanye West not to "rug" and expressing optimism about YZY's performance in the bull market.
What is the YZY project? What are the current controversies? How should we view the phenomenon of celebrities launching tokens?
I. YZY Project Details
Kanye West's token is named YZY. Its official website describes it as "YZY is the token that powers all transactions within YZY MONEY," and YZY MONEY lets you "take control of everything, free from centralized authority."
His X post included an image, suspected to be his cryptocurrency address, and the official website link.
After he released a video confirming the YZY launch, the token's market capitalization once reached $3 billion. According to data from the GMGN.Ai analytics platform, the token's current market cap is approximately $1.14 billion. Its highest trading price was $3.23, but by the time of writing, it had fallen to $1.1493, a drop of 64.42% from its peak.
The YZY MONEY website provides specific information on YZY tokenomics: 20% for public sale, 10% for liquidity pools, 30% allocated to Yeezy Investments LLC (locked for 3 months, then linearly released over 24 months), 20% allocated to the team (locked for 6 months, then linearly released over 24 months), and 20% allocated to the ecosystem development fund (locked for 12 months, then linearly released over 24 months).
YZY was minted on Solana. It aims to be "an expression of support and participation in the ideals embodied by the symbol," not an investment opportunity. The YZY ecosystem includes Ye Pay (a cryptocurrency payment processor allowing merchants to accept credit card and crypto payments with low fees) and a YZY credit card.
YZY employs an anti-sniping mechanism, deploying 25 contract addresses and selecting only one as the official YZY token. The token's vesting schedule uses Jupiter Lock—an open-source and audited protocol—divided into three parts, each with different cliff periods and a 24-month vesting period. It can be traded on Meteora on Solana, and the official liquidity pool address has been published.
II. Controversies Surrounding YZY
1. Insider Wallet Arbitrage
Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, posted on social media, stating, "By my estimation, at least 94% of YZY tokens are held by insiders; 87% of tokens are held by a single multi-sig wallet (now dispersed to multiple wallets); over 3% of tokens were bought in a single large transaction by multiple (pre-prepared) wallets at market open; over 7% of tokens are in the liquidity pool."
According to Lookonchain monitoring, after YZY launched, initially only YZY was added to the liquidity pool, not USDC. Developers could sell YZY by adding/removing liquidity, similar to LIBRA. Multiple insider wallets prepared funds in advance and bought YZY immediately after the announcement. An address beginning with 6MNWV8 attempted to buy yesterday; today, it spent 450,611 USDC to buy 1.29 million YZY at $0.35 and sold 1.04 million YZY for $1.39 million, leaving 249,907 YZY (approx. $600,000), realizing a profit of over $1.5 million.
Additionally, an investor who seemingly had insider information about the token lost $710,000 by buying the wrong YZY token. Subsequently, this address bought the genuine YZY for $761,000 and has currently profited over $710,000.
2. Did Kanye West Really Launch a Token?
As early as February this year, Kanye West stated he would not launch a cryptocurrency because these currencies "would use hype to trick fans." West also pointed out that someone had contacted him to promote a fake cryptocurrency for $2 million through a social media community scam.
Because of this, many people don't believe Kanye West actually launched a token and suspect his account may have been compromised. On X, many users speculated under Kanye West's video that its content was AI-generated, not recorded by Kanye West himself.
Polymarket even launched a prediction market on whether Kanye's account was hacked.
However, the official website and his online store list YZY as a potential payment option, suggesting the project might indeed be backed by Kanye West.
III. How to View the Phenomenon of Celebrity Tokens?
The phenomenon of celebrities launching tokens is commonplace in the cryptocurrency industry. From US Presidents to celebrities in various fields, numerous figures have issued tokens.
On January 17, 2025, Trump announced his own Meme coin, TRUMP coin, on social media. After its launch, the price of TRUMP coin fluctuated wildly. It opened at $0.1824, surged over 15,000% to around $30 within 12 hours, reached a high of $75.35 within 24 hours with a market cap of $82 billion, before subsequently pulling back.
The day after Trump's token launch, his wife Melania also launched a Meme coin named after herself, "MELANIA," followed shortly by a Meme coin named after their young son, "BARRON."
In late May 2025, Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner launched her own Meme coin on the Pump.fun platform; R&B singer Jason Derulo previously collaborated with Sahil Arora to issue the JASON token; rapper Waka Flocka Flame also launched his own Meme coin, FLOCKA; Australian musician Iggy Azalea issued the MOTHER token.
Without exception, these celebrity tokens experienced brief hype followed by rapid declines. Except for TRUMP coin, which occasionally sees significant rallies due to Trump's statements or actions, most celebrity tokens have long since faded into obscurity.
Celebrity token launches leverage their fame, influence, and fanbase for monetization, a result of the collision between the "attention economy" and "hype." Whether it's a president or an ordinary celebrity, tokens typically pump rapidly upon launch before entering a sharp decline. Lacking substantive value support, the price increases and buzz are usually short-lived.
Celebrity tokens first face regulatory compliance issues. Under the US regulatory framework, many are considered "unregistered securities," involving risks like "illegal fundraising" and "illegal token issuance." Secondly, most Meme coins are suspected of being "pump and dump" schemes, lacking real value and merely attracting fan investment through celebrity appeal, with practices like arbitrary price pumping and dumping leading to investor losses. Finally, celebrity tokens involve significant speculation, contradicting the geek spirit of crypto technology, offering no technological innovation, and are detrimental to the industry's long-term development.
However, celebrity tokens aren't entirely without merit. For instance, after Trump issued TRUMP coin, more Americans became aware of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies and began participating, which has certain positive significance for raising public awareness of cryptocurrencies.
IV. Summary
YZY is still in its early stages. Whether the project can truly succeed depends on its practical implementation. If there are no real use cases subsequently, YZY will merely be a speculative Meme coin destined to be lost among countless other tokens. For investors, rational investment is crucial; avoid blindly following hype. Identifying projects with long-term practical value is the true way to invest.
