The Solana-based memecoin YZY, promoted by Kanye West (Ye), posted one of the most volatile debuts of the year, rocketing to a multi-billion-dollar valuation within minutes before retracing as on-chain sleuths flagged insider activity and a contentious liquidity setup. In an X post on Thursday, West shared the contract address and framed “YZY MONEY” as “A NEW ECONOMY, BUILT ON CHAIN,” helping propel the token to roughly $3 billion in market value within about 40 minutes, before sliding sharply lower later in the session.
YZY Faces Insider Trading Claims On Solana
Early trading immediately drew scrutiny. Analytics account Lookonchain alleged that “Only YZY was added to the liquidity pool with no USDC. Dev may sell YZY by adding/removing liquidity, similar to LIBRA,” a single-sided structure that can make exits opaque for retail takers and amplify slippage through add/remove liquidity operations.
Several wallets appeared to have anticipated the launch mechanics. Lookonchain identified wallet 6MNWV8 as having known the contract address ahead of time, even attempting to purchase it before the token went live. Once trading opened, that wallet spent 450,611 USDC to acquire 1.29 million YZY at roughly $0.35, later selling 1.04 million YZY for 1.39 million USDC and retaining 249,907 YZY (about $600,000) — a take the analysts calculated as “a profit of over $1.5M.”
A second cluster of transactions suggested an orchestrated rush to the front of the queue. According to Lookonchain, an insider spent 450,000 USDC across two wallets to buy 1.89 million YZY at $0.24, then sold 1.59 million YZY for 3.37 million USDC at $2.12, still holding ~303,425 YZY (~$510,000). One of the addresses paid 129 SOL (≈$24,000) in priority fees to win block space at launch.
Not every attempt to front-run succeeded. Lookonchain also documented a trader who “bought the wrong YZY and lost $710K,” then spent 761,000 USDC on the official token and recouped over $710,000 minutes later — a whipsaw emblematic of hyper-fragmented symbols during celebrity launches.
Speculation spread beyond spot markets. “Trader 0x68c0 just opened a 3x leveraged long on $YZY again,” Lookonchain wrote, noting that his previous two long attempts within the hour had already lost a combined $159.6K.
Momentum ultimately broke. “YZY has dropped below $1,” Lookonchain posted, adding that whale 6ZFnRH spent 1.55 million USDC to buy 996,453 YZY at $1.56, only to exit at $1.06 for 1.05 million USDC — a ~$500,000 loss in under two hours.
At network level, the launch became a live-fire stress test for Solana. SolanaFloor reported that the chain’s “true TPS (non-vote transactions) hit 2,300 for the first time” during the YZY debut — a new peak for real transaction throughput and a marked improvement from earlier celebrity-token frenzies.
Beyond discrete wallet anecdotes, broader supply concentration data fanned the “insider” narrative. Coinbase’s Conor Grogan pointed to on-chain snapshots suggesting at least 94% of supply sat with insiders at one point, including a single multisig with 87% before distribution — numbers that, if sustained, can magnify price impact during rebalancing or liquidity removal.
The project’s documentation promoted anti-sniping steps — notably deploying 25 contract addresses and randomly designating one as official — but those measures did not prevent early-access behavior flagged by analysts.
At press time, Solana traded at $185.
Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.