Rapper Kanye West’s newly launched YZY token on Solana rocketed up to $3 billion in value just 40 minutes after its launch, but concerns over insider sales dented a large portion of the gains.
In a Thursday X post, West, who officially goes by Ye, shared the contract address along with the website for Yeezy Money, which he describes as “A NEW ECONOMY, BUILT ON CHAIN.”
The website describes YZY as a currency to power transactions within “YZY MONEY,” a ”financial system built on crypto rails.”
In a later post, West was seen saying, “the official YZY token just dropped.”
Within 40 minutes, the YZY token hit a market capitalization of $3 billion, but it fell to about $1.05 billion at the time of writing, according to data analytics platform Nansen.
In the website’s fine print, it is mentioned that the token is not available to entities in restricted jurisdictions. It also warns users about the risks associated with digital assets, including a “potential for complete loss.”
One user shared a screenshot where West had warned users in February that he was asked to promote a fake currency for $2 million, which would have involved him faking his account being hacked after promoting the token.
At the time of writing, West’s net worth was estimated at $400 million, according to Forbes.
Observers point to alleged insider trading
The Yeezy Money website said that it deployed 25 contract addresses for the YZY token, with one selected at random to be the official token in order to discourage token snipers.
Still, the YZY token launch has raised suspicions over insider trading, similar to other celebrity memecoins.
Onchain analytics platform Lookonchain said that only YZY tokens were added to the liquidity pool, which meant that the developers could sell the tokens at any time they liked by modifying the liquidity of the pool.