After half a year of delay, Kanye officially launched MEME coins! It is suspected that the Argentine presidential coin team is operating, and a number of insiders rush to make profits
Author: Nancy, PANews
Half a year later, the well-known rapper Kanye West (Kanye) finally officially announced the launch of the MEME coin YZY, and while the market popularity rose rapidly, the controversy surrounding the control model and potential insider trading also made the coin issuance move questionable.
The team is highly controlled, and the operation mode is similar to the RUG coin LIBRA
On August 21, Kanye announced the launch of a new brand YZY MONEY on social media and issued the token YZY on Solana. In order to prove the authenticity of the project, the official also released a video of Kanye himself leaving the country as an endorsement.
According to YZY's tokenomics, 20% will be used for public offering, 10% will be used for liquidity pools, 30% will be allocated to Yeezy Investments LLC (3 months cliff, 24 months linear release), 20% will be allocated to the team (6 months cliff, 24 months linear release), and 20% will be used for ecological development funds (12 months cliff, 24 months linear release). This means that at least more than 70% of the share is in internal hands, and the circulation of the open market is limited.
In order to avoid common front-running attacks, the team deployed 25 contract addresses in advance and finally randomly selected one of them as the official contract. But there are still users who rush to choose the wrong address and lose money. For example, according to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Aunt Ai, an address spent $767,000 on August 20 to bet that YZY's address had cut meat, losing about $704,000 in 3 hours. However, this mechanism seems to enhance fairness while also leaving plenty of room for internal funding to operate.
At the same time, YZY MONEY has established cooperation with a number of popular Solana MEME ecosystem-related platforms, including Meteora, Jupiter, and MoonPay, and has been listed on Moonshot less than 15 minutes after the official announcement.
star effect superimposed and carefully planned, YZY's popularity was quickly ignited. According to the GMGN market, YZY's market value once exceeded $3.4 billion, but now it has fallen below $1 billion, with an intraday turnover of more than $380 million, and its fee income has exceeded 2,500 SOL.
However, behind the frenzy, on-chain data reveals more details of insider operations. According to Lookonchain's monitoring and analysis, only YZY is currently added to the liquidity pool, and there is no USDC. Developers can sell YZY by adding/removing liquidity, similar to the meme coin LIBRA. Multiple insider wallets prepared funds in advance to buy YZY immediately after the announcement. Insider wallet 6MNWV8 knows the contract address in advance and even tried to buy it yesterday; 6MNWV8 spent 450,611 USDC today to buy 1.29 million YZY at a price of $0.35, and sold 1.04 million YZY at a price of $1.39 million, leaving 249,907 YZY (about $600,000), with a profit of more than $1.5 million; An insider spent 450,000 USDC through two wallets to buy 1.89 million YZY at $0.24, and then sold 1.59 million YZY for $2.12 for 3.37 million USDC. To ensure they were the first to enter, one wallet even paid 129 SOL ($24,000 in priority fees.
According to Coinbase director Conor Grogan, at least 94% of the new Kanye token is held internally, of which 87% was once controlled by a single multi-signature wallet and has now been dispersed to multiple addresses. About 3% is bought by multiple wallets at the opening, and 7% is used for liquidity pools.
Crypto KOL Scooter (@imperooterxbt), who was involved in the inside story of the LIBRA token, posted that it is 99% certain that Hayden Davis (LIBRA project consultant) will participate in the release of the YZY token, because the YZY model is highly similar to LIBRA a few months ago.
What's even more interesting is that a few hours before the YZY news was announced, a U.S. judge had just lifted the freeze on $57.6 million worth of funds from Libra's promoters. Scooter said that it is no coincidence that YZY was released 5 hours after Hayden Davis' funds were unfrozen.
In order to prevent investor lawsuits, YZY even clearly stated in its official documents that it "waives class action lawsuits." The documentation states, "To the extent permitted by law, you agree not to initiate, join or participate in any class action in connection with any claim, dispute or controversy you may have against any protected party." You agree that a court may take injunctive relief to prevent such action or remove you from the action. You agree to pay attorneys' fees and litigation costs incurred by any protected party seeking such relief. "
In addition, in the YZY issuance, Kanye also launched 2 independent projects, Ye Pay and YZY Card.
Ye Pay is a crypto payment processor that allows merchants to accept credit card and cryptocurrency payments with lower fees than the 3.5% typically charged by traditional platforms. Merchants can seamlessly integrate Ye Pay into their websites or apps, providing consumers with a simple and fast checkout experience.
YZY Card is a debit card that can use YZY and USDC globally, and users can top up through fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies in any non-custodial wallet, supporting assets such as YZY, USDC, USDT, etc. In addition, Kanye also supports users to use USDC or YZY (coming soon) to purchase its Yeezy brand clothing.
From resolute resistance to repeated attitudes, the motivation for issuing coins is controversial
In fact, as early as February this year, when the MEME market was still in the boom of celebrity coins driven by Trump, a person familiar with the matter revealed that Kanye West had planned to follow Trump's TRUMP token model and launch the official token YZY of the Yeezy brand, which is expected to be issued on February 21 and can be used for payment on its official website.
According to the disclosure at the time, Kanye will personally receive a 70% share of the token distribution plan, with liquidity provision accounting for 10% and investors accounting for 20%. The information was allegedly disclosed by Yeezy's CFO, Hussein Lalani, via email. However, the coin issuance plan was ultimately postponed due to the Rug incident with Argentine President Milei-related tokens.
Subsequently, a large number of YZY, the token of the same name, appeared in the MEME market. But before that, Kanye had said on social media that he had received an offer worth $2 million to promote a RUG meme coin. The behind-the-scenes party claimed that the cooperation could bring tens of millions of dollars in revenue, but Kanye declined the cooperation and emphasized: "I will not issue tokens, I will only do products, I will only do what I love and understand." I was already rich and there was no need to do anything else. Token hype is to deceive fans, just like hyped sneaker culture.
However, Kanye posted again shortly after: "All tokens are fake at the moment, and I will launch them next week." Subsequently, he frequently followed or closed some crypto practitioner accounts, such as CZ and the founder of Polychain Capital, triggering speculation in the market about the direction of its coin issuance. But the tweet was subsequently deleted, and the community thought that Kanye's coin issuance plan was in vain, but he didn't expect him to be waiting for the opportunity.
Such a repetitive attitude has caused widespread criticism in the crypto community and raised questions. Some KOLs speculated that Kanye's account may have been sold, and listed a number of abnormal phenomena, such as switching the system interface from dark mode to light mode, and adding Doginal-related accounts. But Kanye denied it and said that when he actually launches a cryptocurrency project, it will be announced in a formal and clear way.
A similar attitude has been seen in Kanye's involvement in the NFT space. As early as 2021, he participated in the release of NFTs for the single "Can U Be/Forever Mitus", but then declared: "Don't let me make NFTs, I focus on real products in the real world, such as food or clothing." From
the early resolute boycott to the current personal issuance of coins, Kanye's motives and operating methods have pushed the project into a whirlpool of controversy, and the final direction of this carefully packaged capital game may only be revealed by time.