Kanye West Launches Token on Solana in Frenzied Debut

Hip-hop artist Kanye West has made his first direct move into crypto with YZY, a Solana-based token promoted late Wednesday night on his verified X account.

“A new economy, built on chain,” West’s account posted on the social media platform. A video of West confirming “the official Yeezy token” drop was released an hour later.

West has spoken about Bitcoin before and once sued to shut down the unauthorized “Coinye” token. YZY is the first coin he has formally launched under his own name and brand. Earlier in March, West pivoted to crypto and teased the possibility of dropping a meme coin.

Volatility for Yeezus

His announcement triggered a buying surge that quickly pushed the coin’s market capitalization to more than $3 billion less than an hour after it went live, before drastically dropping to less than $1 billion, according to on-chain data from Birdeye.

The token was quickly listed on platforms including CoinMarketCap and Bitget, with Poloniex announcing support shortly after. 

Trading volumes on Solana decentralized exchanges spiked, cementing YZY as one of the largest and most visible celebrity-linked coins to debut yet, eclipsing that of other launches such as TRUMP, MOTHER, and LIBRA.

While YZY is clocking a 375% rise over the last 24 hours, the token is down more than 34% in the past hour to $0.99, data shows.

“The rapid rise of $YZY to a roughly $3 billion market cap followed by a crash within hours shows how fragile celebrity-driven tokens can be,” Dan Dadybayo, research and strategy lead at Unstoppable Wallet, told Decrypt.

Framed as part of a broader “YZY Money” ecosystem, its website describes the token as part of “a new financial system, built on crypto rails,” with YZY positioned as the native cryptocurrency of a broader ecosystem.

The token’s launch purportedly has an anti-sniping mechanism, deploying 25 contract addresses with one chosen as official, with the aim of “putting power back into the hands of real traders,” its website FAQ section reads.

The website also describes YZY as more than a meme coin and goes on to describe Ye Pay, a proposed payment processor aimed at reducing merchant fees, and the YZY Card, pitched as a global spending tool for YZY and USDC.

The project claims the token would support loyalty programs, retail use, and peer-to-peer transfers, but no timeline or technical details were provided.

While the site disclosed the Solana contract address and liquidity pool, questions remain about governance, compliance, and whether these features will be delivered.

West’s representatives under the Yeezy brand did not immediately return Decrypt’s request for comments on those aspects.

Bubblemaps data shows a single wallet controls about 70% of the token’s total one-billion supply, with public allocations reported at just 20% and the remainder vested under Yeezy Investments LLC, spurring concerns over centralization risks.

“While these wallets are spread across different addresses, they are almost certainly insider-affiliated, giving Kanye West and his team effective control of the token’s supply,” Dadybayo said.

Despite the initial surge in market capitalization, Dadybayo warned that the liquidity pool is thin, which could mean “even moderate sells can trigger cascading price drops.”

“Compared to earlier celebrity tokens like $JENNER, $MOTHER or $DADDY, $YZY is riskier due to its even more extreme centralization,” he added. “Those earlier projects saw 50–60% insider control and still ended in retail losses; here, the imbalance is greater.”