Kanye West’s official meme coin, YZY, launched today, causing an immediate market frenzy. The token’s market cap explosively grew from $200 million to over $3 billion before settling around $2 billion.
- Token Launch: Announced via Kanye’s Twitter, the YZY token was deployed on the Solana-based Moonshot platform. Initial skepticism about a potential hack was quelled by a follow-up confirmation video from Kanye.
- Tokenomics: The total supply is 1 billion YZY. The allocation is highly centralized, with 70% going to Yeezy Investments LLC (with staged vesting schedules), 20% for public supply, and 10% for liquidity.
- Ecosystem Vision: The project, YZY MONEY, aims to create a financial ecosystem. Its components include:
- YZY: The base currency for all transactions.
- YE PAY: A proposed cryptocurrency payment processor.
- YZY CARD: A proposed card for spending YZY and USDC globally.
- Significant Risks: The project is surrounded by controversy and risk due to its highly concentrated token supply, lack of detailed technical or partnership information, and its nature as a celebrity-driven asset. The official website explicitly states YZY is not an investment opportunity.
- Market Context: The token’s value is primarily driven by Kanye West’s immense personal influence and IP, leading to concerns about its long-term sustainability beyond initial hype, a common fate for many celebrity coins.
By Karen Z, Foresight News
At 9:53 AM Beijing time today (August 21st), renowned rapper Kanye West tweeted the news, “YEEZY MONEY IS HERE, A NEW ECONOMY, BUILT ON CHAIN,” announcing the launch of a new project and linking the official website to money.yeezy.com. Notably, the accompanying image also revealed for the first time the contract information for the YZY token.
As soon as the news was released, the market value of YZY token experienced explosive growth, soaring 14 times from the original scale of about US$200 million to US$3.1 billion. The current market value has fallen back to around US$2 billion.
Initially, some community members questioned the security of Kanye West’s Twitter account, speculating it might have been hacked. However, with the official launch of the YZY token on the Moonshot platform and Kanye West’s subsequent Twitter video confirming YZY’s authenticity, the controversy gradually subsided.
YZY Token Economics
The core concept of YZY MONEY is to build a financial ecosystem that allows users to control all rights and interests and break free from the constraints of centralized authority, and YZY is the base currency that supports all transactions within this ecosystem.
The YZY token economics design is as follows: the total supply is 1 billion, of which 10% will be used to provide liquidity and 20% will be allocated to the public supply.
Yeezy Investments LLC will receive 70% of the token supply, with a phased release mechanism to prevent early selling. Specific details are as follows:
- 30%: 3 months lockup (cliff) + 24 months vest
- 20%: 6 months lockup (cliff) + 24 months vesting (vest)
- 20%: 12-month lockup (cliff) + 24-month vesting (vest)
Currently, YZY has opened trading pairs with USDC on Meteora, the liquidity management platform of the Solana ecosystem.
According to the project’s official website, 25 YZY contract addresses have been deployed, with only one randomly selected official contract. This reduces the probability of identifying the correct contract address to 1/25, effectively preventing sniper attacks. Furthermore, the project uses Jupiter Lock to manage the on-chain locking and distribution of YZY tokens.
YZY MONEY’s composition system
According to the official website, YZY, YE PAY and YZY CARD are independent entities with different uses.
The specific positioning is as follows:
- YZY is the base currency supporting all transactions within the YZY MONEY ecosystem.
- YE PAY is a cryptocurrency payment processor that accepts credit card and cryptocurrency payments.
- YZY CARD supports the use of YZY and USDC globally and may be used for consumption within the brand ecosystem.
Risks and Controversies
Kanye West’s YZY token, a product of combining his personal IP with cryptocurrency, has attracted widespread attention from the market and the community. While this token demonstrates the influence of celebrity in the crypto space, it also carries numerous controversies and risks.
- Highly Centralized: The YZY token distribution structure shows a high degree of concentration, with Yeezy Investments LLC holding absolute control (70% of the tokens), while the liquidity and public supply account for only 30% combined.
- The ambiguity of ecological implementation: Although the project has proposed concepts such as “YZY MONEY financial system”, “YE PAY”, and “YZY CARD”, they are currently only at the description stage on the official website and lack specific technical details, partner information, or implementation timetable.
- Investment Risk: The official website clearly states that YZY is not an investment opportunity or security.
- Market hype and short-term effects driven by celebrity IP: The explosive growth of the YZY token’s market capitalization is driven primarily by Kanye West’s global influence. As an iconic figure in the rap and fashion worlds, his personal IP generates inherent traffic, quickly attracting fans and speculators, and generating short-term market hype. However, most celebrity tokens (such as LIBRA) have experienced a collapse after their popularity waned, and YZY faces similar challenges.
- Kanye West’s past controversial remarks and actions (such as extreme remarks, inconsistent business decisions, etc.) also add uncertainty to the project.
Kanye West’s connection to cryptocurrency
This isn’t Kanye West’s first foray into cryptocurrency. Back in February 2025, he announced plans to launch a meme coin called YZY as the official currency for his Yeezy brand.
Afterwards, Kanye West also publicly stated that he was learning about Bitcoin from crypto KOL Ansem.
Prior to this, there had been several YZY-related tokens in the community, all of which were considered “community-generated tokens” or “counterfeits.” Kanye West’s series of actions this time officially confirmed the launch of the official version of the YZY token.
YZY is still in its early stages, and its success depends on real-world utility (such as paying for Yeezy merchandise), community support, and Ye’s execution. The long-term value of a crypto project depends on real-world use cases. If the ecosystem fails to deliver, the token could become a mere speculative tool. For ordinary investors, be wary of irrational following trends under the “fan filter” and fully understand the volatility of the cryptocurrency market and the speculative nature of such projects, prudently making decisions.