Detonate the crypto market, Kanye Meme coins surge to $3 billion

Famous rapper Kanye West officially launched his official meme coin YZY on August 21, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens. It quickly ignited the crypto market, with its market value once surging to $3.1 billion and then falling back to about $2 billion.

Token distribution is highly concentrated: 70% of the tokens are held by Yeezy Investments LLC with a phased release mechanism; only 30% are used for liquidity and public supply.

Ecological vision and product planning: The project aims to build a decentralized financial ecosystem with YZY as the base currency. It also plans to launch the payment processor YE PAY and the global consumer card YZY CARD, but the specific implementation details have not yet been clarified.

Market reaction and risk disputes: Although Kanye's personal influence has driven the popularity of the token, the project faces doubts about centralization, uncertainty in ecological implementation and speculative risks. The official website clearly states that YZY is not an investment security and reminds users to participate cautiously.

Background and origin: Kanye has expressed interest in cryptocurrencies many times before and has learned from industry experts. This launch is regarded as a landmark move for him to officially enter the crypto field.

Summary

At 09:53 Beijing time today (August 21), famous rapper Kanye West announced the launch of his new project on Twitter with the message "YEEZY MONEY IS HERE, A NEW ECONOMY, BUILT ON CHAIN" and attached the official website link money.yeezy.com. It is particularly noteworthy that the picture attached to his tweet also disclosed the contract information of the YZY token for the first time.

As soon as the news was released, the market value of YZY token ushered in an explosive growth, surging 14 times from the original scale of about $200 million to $3.1 billion, and currently falling back to about $2 billion.

In the early stage of the incident, some community members questioned the security of Kanye West's Twitter account, speculating that it might have been hacked. However, as the Moonshot platform officially launched the YZY token and Kanye West once again confirmed the authenticity of YZY through a Twitter video, the relevant disputes gradually subsided.

YZY Token Economics

The core concept of YZY MONEY is to build a financial ecosystem where users control all rights and interests and get rid of the constraints of centralized authority, and YZY is the base currency supporting all transactions in this ecosystem.

The design of YZY token economics is as follows: the total supply is 1 billion tokens, of which 10% will be used for providing liquidity and 20% will be allocated to the Public Supply.

Yeezy Investments LLC will obtain 70% of the token supply, which will adopt a phased release mechanism to prevent early selling. The details are as follows:

30%: 3-month cliff + 24-month vesting

20%: 6-month cliff + 24-month vesting

20%: 12-month cliff + 24-month vesting

At present, YZY has opened a trading pair with USDC on Meteora, a liquidity management platform in the Solana ecosystem.

According to the official website, the project party has deployed 25 YZY contract addresses, among which only one is a randomly selected official contract. This reduces the probability of identifying the correct contract address to 1/25, aiming to effectively resist sniper attacks. In addition, the project realizes on-chain locking and distribution management of YZY tokens through Jupiter Lock.

The Composition System of YZY MONEY

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 in 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 worldwide and may be used for consumption within the brand ecosystem.

Risks and Controversies

The YZY token released by Kanye West, as a combination of his personal IP and cryptocurrency, has attracted widespread attention from the market and the community. It not only reflects the influence of celebrity effect in the crypto field but also hides many controversies and risks:

High centralization: The distribution structure of YZY tokens shows a high concentration of holdings. Yeezy Investments LLC has absolute dominance (70% of the tokens), while the liquidity and public supply parts account for only 30% in total.

Ambiguity in ecological implementation: Although the project has put forward concepts such as "YZY MONEY financial system", "YE PAY" and "YZY CARD", it is currently only at the stage of description on the official website, lacking specific technical details, partner information or implementation schedule.

Investment risks: The official website clearly states that YZY is not an investment opportunity or security.

Market popularity driven by celebrity IP and short-term effects: The explosive growth of YZY token's market value is mainly driven by Kanye West's global influence. As an iconic figure in the rap and fashion industries, his personal IP has its own traffic, which can quickly attract fans and speculators to enter the market, forming short-term market popularity. However, most past celebrity tokens (such as LIBRA) collapsed after the popularity plummeted, and YZY also faces similar doubts.

Kanye's past controversial remarks and behaviors (such as extreme remarks, repeated business decisions, etc.) also add uncertainty to the project.

Kanye West's Connection with Cryptocurrencies

It is not the first time that Kanye West has been involved with cryptocurrencies. As early as February 2025, Kanye West announced plans to launch a meme coin named YZY as the official currency of his Yeezy brand.

Later, Kanye West also publicly stated that he was learning Bitcoin knowledge from crypto KOL Ansem.

Before that, there were multiple YZY-related tokens in the community, all regarded as "community spontaneous tokens" or "counterfeits". However, Kanye West's series of actions this time officially confirmed the launch of the official version of YZY token.

At present, YZY is still in the early stage, and its success depends on practical utility (such as payment for Yeezy products), community support and Ye's execution ability. The long-term value of crypto projects depends on actual application scenarios. If the ecosystem cannot be realized, the token may become a pure speculative tool. For ordinary investors, they need to be alert to irrational follow-up under the "fan filter", fully understand the volatility of the cryptocurrency market and the speculative nature of such projects, and make decisions cautiously.

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