Kanye West’s Memecoin Reaches Three Billion Dollars, Then Falls Amid Doubts

The recently launched YZY token by rapper Kanye West on Solana surged to three billion dollars in value just 40 minutes after its launch, but concerns over insider selling diminished a large portion of the gains.

In a post on X on Thursday, West, who is officially known as Ye, shared the contract address along with a website for Yeezy Money, which he describes as a ‘new economy, built on blockchain’. The website describes YZY as a currency for facilitating transactions within ‘YZY MONEY’, a ‘financial system built on crypto rails’.

Within 40 minutes, the YZY token reached a market capitalization of three billion dollars, but it fell to around 1.05 billion dollars at the time of writing, according to data analytics platform Nansen. In fine print on the website, it mentions that the token is not available to entities in restricted jurisdictions. It also warns users of the risks associated with digital assets, including the ‘potential for complete loss’.

One user shared a screenshot in which West warned users in February that he was asked to promote a fake currency for 2 million dollars, which would involve faking the hacking of his account after promoting the token. At the time of writing, West’s net worth was estimated at 400 million dollars, according to Forbes.

Alleged Insider Trading

The Yeezy Money website states that 25 contract addresses were set up for the YZY token, with one randomly selected to be the official token to discourage token ‘snipers’. However, the token launch has raised suspicions of insider trading, similar to other celebrity meme tokens.

Onchain analytics platform Lookonchain stated that only YZY tokens were added to the liquidity pool, meaning that developers could sell tokens at any time by changing the liquidity of the pool. Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, highlighted that at least 94 percent of the token supply is held by insiders, with one multisig wallet holding 87 percent of the supply before it is distributed to multiple wallets.

One user who allegedly had insider knowledge mistakenly bought the wrong token, resulting in a loss of 710,000 dollars; however, he recouped his losses by later purchasing the correct token, Lookonchain reported. Another user made 3.4 million dollars, paying 24,000 dollars in priority fees on the Solana blockchain to ensure that the transaction was processed as quickly as possible.

Onchain Lens noted that the entity that purchased the token early made a profit of 6 million dollars when the token peaked.

Crypto Whales, Traders Continue to Buy

Despite the concerns, several well-known crypto traders stated that they purchased the token. Leveraged trader James Wynn said that whales are likely to be attracted to the token due to its liquidity and volume.

Wynn stated that this is a short-term play and that he wants to double or quadruple the amount he invested in the token. The trader cited the namesake meme token of President Donald Trump, which quadrupled in 28 hours, as a reason for his investment. It appears that BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also purchased the token.

Celebrity meme tokens have attracted a lot of attention this year, and the support of Argentine President Javier Milei for the LIBRA token is considered one of the more controversial instances. In February, the Argentine president shared the token on X, causing the token’s market capitalization to rise by 4 billion dollars; however, he deleted the post a few hours later after facing community backlash, leading to a drop in the token’s price.

The incident sparked outrage, with many calling for strict limits on meme tokens promoted by politicians. Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump launched the TRUMP meme token ahead of his presidential inauguration.