23 hours ago
HONG KONG—Ye, the creator formerly known arsenic Kanye West who has repeatedly called himself a "Nazi" successful caller weeks, plans to motorboat a crypto token, according to 3 sources adjacent to the project.
The token, YZY, is designed to assistance Ye side-step platforms similar Shopify that person chopped ties with him successful effect to his hateful rhetoric.
Crypto, with its censorship-resistant ethos, offers Ye an alternate avenue for cashing successful connected his personage status: Seventy percent of the YZY token, named aft Ye's Yeezy covering brand, volition beryllium reserved for Ye personally, with conscionable 10% allocated for liquidity provisioning and 20% for investors.
Ye's foray into crypto comes connected the heels of years of nationalist contention that person strained his concern empire. In 2022, Ye was dropped by Adidas, Balenciaga and his endowment agency aft making a bid of antisemitic comments, including praising Adolf Hitler successful a unrecorded interrogation and tweeting inflammatory rhetoric astir Jewish radical and different groups.
The fallout continued this twelvemonth erstwhile Ye, aft again calling himself a Nazi connected X, listed a T-shirt bearing a swastika connected the Yeezy website, starring e-commerce level Shopify to unopen down his online store.
YZY is being packaged arsenic the authoritative currency of Yeezy and volition beryllium accepted arsenic outgo connected his website.
CoinDesk learned astir the token done an email from Hussein Lalani, a idiosyncratic with a yeezy.com email code who identified himself arsenic Yeezy's main fiscal officer. After sending a papers describing the token unsolicited, Lalani requested that CoinDesk clasp disconnected connected work and hold to an "embargo." CoinDesk did not hold to the embargo, and 3 sources adjacent to the task authenticated the document.
Lalani did not respond to further requests for comment.
The YZY token was initially acceptable to spell for merchantability connected Yeezy's website connected Thursday astatine 6:00 p.m., but the motorboat was delayed to Friday, according to a squad subordinate who asked not to beryllium identified for fearfulness of associating publically with the project.
Following TRUMP
There person been murmurings of a imaginable Ye token since earlier this month, aft the rapper teased that helium had tried to interaction Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
Ye aboriginal posted that helium was “not doing a coin” contempt idiosyncratic offering him $2 cardinal to bash so. He added: “Coins prey connected the fans with hype.”
Sources adjacent to the YZY squad told CoinDesk that Ye aimed to emulate Donald Trump’s TRUMP meme coin, which the president launched 2 days earlier his 2nd inauguration. Trump raised eyebrows for his likewise monolithic insider-ownership distribution: 80% of TRUMP is presently held by CIC Digital, a institution with ties to the president.
Ye, too, wanted an 80% ownership involvement but was negotiated down to 70%, an further root adjacent to the task who asked not to beryllium identified told CoinDesk. Should Ye's token execute adjacent a fraction of TRUMP's success, his involvement could inactive beryllium worthy galore millions of dollars.
'The Milei thing'
YZY enters an already saturated marketplace of celebrity-driven crypto projects, galore of which person been accused of exploiting instrumentality loyalty without offering tangible utility. In galore cases, these tokens spot a short-lived terms surge driven by hype earlier crashing, leaving retail investors holding the bag.
Centralized ownership allocation lone adds to the hazard of abrupt terms drops. According to the unsolicited YZY property release, Ye’s 70% YZY involvement is structured done a multi-phase vesting docket — immoderate coins are locked for up to 12 months, meaning they cannot beryllium sold until past — though critics reason that specified insider-heavy allocations inactive favour founders implicit retail investors.
Just this week, Argentina became enmeshed successful a governmental situation aft a meme coin endorsed by President Javier Milei, LIBRA, turned retired to beryllium a "pump-and-dump" scheme, triggering nationalist outrage and calls for impeachment.
The root adjacent to YZY told CoinDesk that the token's hold comes arsenic its squad ponders whether it's inactive "too adjacent to the Milei thing."
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