Kanye West Plans to Launch YZY Token, Owning 70% Supply

Key Points

• The coin will reportedly help Ye side-step Shopify and similar platforms that cut ties with him.
• Ye was a lot in the spotlight due to his hateful rhetoric and his token plans follow recent crypto scandals.

According to the latest reports, the controversial figure in the US music industry, Kanye West aka Ye, is planning to launch his own crypto token. His plans have been revealed following various scandals in the crypto industry targeting the memecoin sector and even Argentina’s President.

YZY, the Official Currency of Yeezy

Reports claim that the new token will be called YZY and it aims to help Ye avoid platforms like Shopify that have ended collaborations as a response to his hateful rhetoric .

Such behavior, involving Nazi comments and inflammatory statements about Jewish people, led to e-commerce platform Shopify to shut down his online store.

The crypto industry with its censorship-resistant ecosystem, offers Ye an alternative. According to sources, 70% of the new YZY token (inspired by his Yeezy clothing brand) will be reserved for him, personally.

10% of the YZY token will be allocated for liquidity provisioning and 20% of the supply will go to investors.

YZY will reportedly be the official currency of Yeezy and it will be accepted as payment on his website.

CoinDesk learned about the upcoming token launch via an email from Hussein Lalani – someone who identified himself as Yeezy’s CFO, as the publication noted.

YZY Coin Could Launch Today

The coin was supposed to go live on Yeezy’s website on Thursday at 06:00 pm, but the launch was delayed to today, February 19, according to a team member cited by Coindesk.

Since rumors about a Ye coin surfaced, various YE digital assets popped up. Most of them are launched on Solana, and have a few tens of thousands of dollars in market cap, according to data from DEXScreener.

One of the coins is down by over 16% in 24 hours, and has a market cap of over $600,000.

YZY Token Launch Follows Crypto Scandals

Rumors of a potential Ye digital asset surfaced after the rapper was in talks with Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, according to some reports.

Ye later said that he was not creating a coin, despite someone offering his $2 million for it. He also said that coins prey on the fans with hype, as the publication mentioned above noted.

Since Ye came back on X, he has been posting chaotical statements among others, just like he has been doing for a long time.

His token launch would follow other controversial digital assets launches in the market including TRUMP launched in January and LIBRA, a recent crypto scandal that involved Argentina’s President Javier Milei who showed support for the coin.

LIBRA harmed the memecoin market and the crypto industry overall. More voices said that such problematic projects hurt the ecosystem instead of supporting adoption and showing serious building efforts.