YZY Project Background

Kanye West, as a highly influential figure in the music and fashion industry, has encountered a series of commercial setbacks in recent years. Since making anti-Semitic remarks in 2022, he has faced collective boycotts from mainstream commercial platforms. 27 major commercial partners, including Adidas, have terminated contracts with him, dealing a heavy blow to his commercial empire. Most recently, a controversial element in the character T-shirt launched on his official website has led to the permanent closure of his online store by Shopify, further squeezing the survival space of his traditional commercial channels.

At the same time, the cryptocurrency market, with its decentralized and anti-censorship characteristics, provides new possibilities for individuals and projects facing traditional financial restrictions. Celebrities entering the crypto space is not uncommon. The TRUMP MEME token launched by Trump has achieved some market success, with a current market value of 17 billion USD, providing a reference for Kanye West. Against this backdrop, Kanye West plans to launch the YZY token, attempting to build his own decentralized payment system through cryptocurrency to revitalize the business landscape.

Image source:https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/02/21/kanye-west-self-proclaimed-nazi-who-said-coins-prey-on-fans-plans-yzy-token

YZY Source and Development

On February 7, 2025, Kanye West posted a tweet on the social media platform X about the “nature of money,” sparking heated discussions within the crypto community. A large number of fans flooded the comments, urging him to join the “celebrity meme coin” trend and launch his own token, which played a role in his consideration of issuing the YZY token.

Not long ago, Kanye had publicly shared a screenshot of a conversation, exposing an attempt to lure him with $2 million to launch a “rug pull” meme coin. He claimed to have refused the offer, stating that he did not need to deceive his fans by issuing a token, earning him praise from the crypto community. However, shortly afterward, CoinDesk reported that he was secretly preparing to launch the YZY token, leading to widespread skepticism and mockery from the public.

According to three individuals familiar with the project, the YZY token distribution plan allocated 70% of the total supply to Kanye himself, only 10% for liquidity provision, and the remaining 20% to investors. This highly centralized structure mirrored the TRUMP MEME token and sparked controversy over market control and potential “pump and dump” concerns.

The original team planned to launch the YZY token on the Yeezy official website at 6 pm on Thursday, February 21, 2025. However, nearing the release, the team made a last-minute decision to postpone it to Friday. At that time, the news that ‘Argentinian President Mile endorsed LIBRA was confirmed to be a pump-and-dump scam’ caused a huge stir in the crypto market, making the market more cautious about celebrities issuing tokens. The team was well aware that in such a sensitive market atmosphere, releasing the YZY’s token as planned could face strong resistance from investors. After all, celebrity token issuance itself is controversial due to highly concentrated ownership structure, potential market manipulation risks, and the LIBRA scam intensified market panic. Forcing the launch of the YZY token at this time could not only result in a cold reception and failure to raise the expected funds but also subject Kanye and the team to more public pressure and trust crisis, significantly impacting the progress of future projects. Therefore, in order to attract market attention, ease market tension, and strive for a more favorable sales environment, after careful consideration, the team decided to postpone the launch of the YZY token.

YZY Token Economy

The total supply of YZY tokens is 1 billion, all circulating. As of March 5, 2025, the price of YZY tokens is $0.006457, with a market cap of about $5.5 million, and Gate.io platform’s 24-hour trading volume is $2.3 million.

Image source:https://www.gate.io/pilot/solana/yeezy-coin-yzy

According to the position structure, there are a total of 14304 holding addresses for the YZY token. The top ten holders only account for 15.12% of the total circulation. The top holder is Raydium trading pool, accounting for 5%. The second largest holding proportion is only 1%. The holders do not sell after receiving profits, indicating signs of manipulation.

Image source:https://solscan.io/token/4NBTf8PfLH4oLFnwf3knv46FY9i5oXjDxffCetXRpump#analytics

According to three sources familiar with the project, the YZY token distribution mechanism is highly centralized, with 70% of the YZY tokens owned by Kanye West personally. These tokens will be released according to a multi-stage unlocking schedule, with some tokens being locked for up to 12 months. 20% of the tokens are allocated to investors, mainly those who supported the project in its early stages and stakeholders. Only 10% of the tokens are used for liquidity supply, aiming to ensure smooth market trading and circulation, providing necessary liquidity support for the buying and selling of YZY in the market.

Token YZY may have been deployed as early as February 18th, with a market value stabilizing between $600,000 and $1 million two days after its launch, reaching a market value of $4 million twice, and peaking at $10.26 million.

Image source:https://www.gate.io/pilot/solana/yeezy-coin-yzy

As the core application scenario of YZY token, Yeezy brand e-commerce platform will accept YZY token as an official payment method. This means that Yeezy fans around the world have the option to pay with YZY tokens when purchasing Yeezy products. In this way, it not only provides consumers with a completely new payment option, but also directly promotes the application of the YZY token in real business transactions.

For Kanye West, this move helps him bypass the dilemma of being banned by traditional payment platforms due to controversial remarks, and directly connects brand sales with cryptocurrency. At the same time, by linking the YZY token to the purchase of Yeezy products, it can increase the practicality and demand of the token, giving the token a certain intrinsic value.

Image source:https://www.yeezy-official.com/

In addition to e-commerce payments, the YZY project team also plans to expand the application scenarios of the YZY token to more physical consumer areas. For example, ticket sales at events such as concerts and art exhibitions hosted by Kanye West can support YZY token payments. In addition, offline stores and partner merchants related to the Yeezy brand may also gradually accept YZY tokens as a payment method.

Meme tokens typically lack practical utility and face high volatility and market uncertainty. The investment risk is high, so investors need to make careful decisions and invest within their means.

YZY Technical Foundation

The YZY project chooses to deploy on the Ethereum blockchain, leveraging Ethereum’s mature smart contract system to achieve token issuance and management. Its underlying technology relies on Ethereum’s blockchain technology, including distributed ledger, hash algorithm, smart contracts, etc. The distributed ledger ensures the immutability and transparency of transaction records, the hash algorithm is used to verify the integrity and security of data, and smart contracts can automate transactions and business logic, such as token distribution, unlocking, and other functions that may be implemented through smart contracts.

In order to ensure the security of smart contracts, the YZY team hired a professional blockchain security audit company to audit the contract code. The process of security audit includes vulnerability detection, logic review, and stress testing of the contract code. Through the audit, potential security risks can be identified and fixed, such as token theft and distribution errors that may be caused by code vulnerabilities.

Risk Warning

(1) Highly concentrated ownership risk: Kanye West holds up to 70% of the YZY tokens, this absolute controlling position implies that he has nearly absolute control over the token market. Once he chooses to sell a large amount of tokens based on personal financial needs, changes in business strategy, or other factors, the supply of YZY tokens in the market will instantly increase significantly, triggering a severe oversupply situation, leading to a cascading drop in token prices, causing significant losses to ordinary investors. For example, if Kanye West faces a sudden financial crisis and urgently needs to cash out, selling a large amount of tokens at once, the market will simply not be able to absorb such a huge volume of sell orders, and the price will inevitably plummet.

(2) Severe liquidity shortage risk: Only 10% of the tokens are used for liquidity supply, which is an extremely low proportion in the cryptocurrency market. This directly leads to a very limited number of YZY tokens available for trading in the market, resulting in low trading activity. When investors want to buy or sell YZY tokens, they may find it difficult to find suitable trading counterparts. Even if they succeed in trading, they will face extremely high slippage costs due to the lack of liquidity. For example, when investors plan to buy a certain amount of YZY tokens, the scarcity of tradable tokens in the market may result in a purchase price far higher than expected, significantly increasing the investment cost; when selling, due to the lack of buyers, they may only be able to sell at a very low price.

(3) Regulatory Uncertainty Risk: Global cryptocurrency regulatory policies are in a continuously changing and highly inconsistent state. Given Kanye West’s controversial remarks and actions in the past, the YZY project is highly likely to become a focus of regulatory authorities. Once regulatory policies become stricter, or if the project is deemed non-compliant with certain regulatory requirements, it may face severe measures such as trading restrictions, asset freezes, or even outright bans.