Did Kanye West just expose how celeb X hacks are used to pump fake meme coins?

Key Takeaways

• Ye's crypto post casts doubt on celebrity X hack claims.
• The rap mogul said he rejected the offer.

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Kanye West is back on X, and you’ll never guess what happened next.

West, now known as Ye, the famous rapper and Bitcoin advocate, posted a screenshot on Friday where an unidentified contact reached out to Ye, offering him two million dollars to promote a fraudulent “ye currency.”

Ye would get $750,000 upfront as part of the proposed deal, and an additional $1.25 million disbursed 16 hours after the post went live on X.

Part of the deal was that the promotional post must remain active for eight hours. The contact also instructed him to post “my account was hacked, the post was not me” after the eight-hour window.

The message chillingly concluded with the statement that the company soliciting this promotion “will be scamming the public out of tens of millions of dollars.”

Ye said he turned down the $2 million offer, claiming he wouldn’t “scam my community.” However, his post raised questions about the truth behind previous X account hacks targeting celebrities. Those seemingly shared a similar scheme.

Several celebrities’ X accounts have been hacked to promote Solana meme coins.

Last December, Drake’s account was hacked to promote a Solana-based memecoin called $ANITA. The scam generated $5 million in trading volume before being exposed and removed.

Ye looks to connect directly with Coinbase CEO “concerning crypto”

Ye also signaled interest in connecting directly with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong “concerning crypto.”

He posted another screenshot today where he was asking someone for a crypto hookup without any middlemen. It turned out that the “crypto connect” he was looking for was Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, and the person he messaged said they would try to get Ye Armstrong’s number.

There was no public, direct connection between Ye and Armstrong prior to his recent attempt to contact the CEO. However, there was a known incident involving Armstrong and Ye’s presidential run over four years ago.

In October 2020, Armstrong shared a tweet describing a blog post about voting for West as “epic.” The now-deleted post was written by Rob Rhinehart, the founder of Soylent, and it argued in favor of supporting the artist’s presidential run.

As soon as Ye’s new post surfaced, members of the crypto community warned that he was trying to bypass middlemen by going straight to one. Many commenters stressed the importance of self-custody through cold wallets. Some suggested decentralized exchanges (DEXs) as a true alternative.

“Ye, anytime you buy bitcoin on an exchange and leave it there, the exchange is the middle man. You don’t really own it until you take it off the exchange,” said the Bitcoin Conference. “The only way to bypass the “middleman” is to buy straight from your cold wallet.”

These tweets were among Ye’s Friday morning flurry of tweets on X, his first in some time. Around three posts were about crypto. In another post, he questioned, “WHEN PEOPLE MAKE ALL THAT MONEY WITH A COIN IS THAT CASH OR CONCEPT.”

Most of his other posts contained numerous antisemitic remarks, including praise for Hitler and the statement “I’m a Nazi.” He also touched on other topics, claiming his support for Sean “Diddy” Combs was “selfish,” and falsely accusing Elon Musk of stealing his “Nazi Swag” at the inauguration.

Ye has a history of spreading hateful rhetoric on the platform, resulting in multiple suspensions, including one in December 2022 for antisemitic content.

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