In case you missed it, Ye, the artist and Yeezy mogul formerly known as Kanye West, just officially stepped into the crypto game. Lord.
Get this, on Wednesday he announced the rollout of YZY Money, a move that completely changes course from the stance he took earlier this year when he criticized celebrity backed tokens.
“YEEZY MONEY IS HERE. A NEW ECONOMY, BUILT ON CHAIN,” Ye declared in a post on X.
The Solana based coin, known as YZY, immediately took off, jumping 814 percent to hit $1.86, according to CoinMarketCap. The reversal is notable since Ye once turned down a $2 million offer to launch a token, saying at the time that “coins prey on the fans with hype.”
But YZY Money is positioning itself as more than a simple meme coin. The rollout introduces a full financial ecosystem with three key parts. There is the YZY token itself, Ye Pay which is described as a low fee crypto payment processor, and the YZY Card that would allow users to spend both YZY and USDC worldwide.
According to the project’s site, the coin trades on Meteora’s Solana platform. To protect traders from bots, Ye’s team launched 25 contract addresses and used random selection. The strategy was meant to put “power back into the hands of real traders.”
YZY’s structure also leans heavily on transparency. The token is governed by the Jupiter Lock protocol with a strict vesting schedule. Public allocation makes up 20 percent of the supply, with another 20 percent locked for liquidity. Yeezy Investments LLC holds 30 percent but cannot touch it until after a three month cliff followed by a 24 month vesting timeline. Other tranches are locked under six month and twelve month cliffs with similar long term vesting, designed to avoid the kind of celebrity dump scenarios that have haunted past projects.
The timing of Ye’s entry lines up with the rebound of the larger crypto market. Bitcoin is trading at $114,093, while Solana climbed nearly 5 percent to $187.07. The overall sentiment has shifted from “Fear” to “Neutral” on the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.
Other celebrity coins have not fared nearly as well. President Donald Trump’s Official Trump and first lady Melania Trump’s Official Melania Meme tokens have both lost over 80 percent of their value since their highs in January.
For now though, Ye’s YZY Money has the momentum and the hype, with its opening run making an immediate mark in the market.