Aug. 22, 2025 — Kanye West, also known as Ye, launched a cryptocurrency called YZY on Aug. 21 as part of a branded initiative referred to as “YZY Money.” The rollout, announced from West’s verified X account, described a token linked to a payments-oriented effort that included a service labeled YePay and a YZY-branded card. The first day of trading featured rapid inflows, sharp price swings, and intensive real-time monitoring by blockchain analytics accounts that highlighted a high concentration of holdings among a small set of wallets.

Announcement and Launch

In the weeks leading up to Aug. 21, community posts and rumor roundups anticipated a celebrity-backed meme-style token associated with West. Prior to the official announcement, multiple unaffiliated tokens using the “YZY” name appeared on Pump.fun, a Solana-based token-launch platform. Community warnings labeled several of those copycats as rug pulls. The official announcement on Aug. 21 introduced YZY as part of a “YZY Money” entity and described a blockchain-centered payments plan, including the YePay processor and YZY cards, positioned as a lower-fee alternative to some traditional financial services.

Market Performance in the First 24 Hours

Trading began with a surge. Within roughly 40 minutes of the token becoming available, public dashboards tracking notional market value showed YZY’s fully diluted valuation approaching $3 billion. Prices then declined by about two-thirds during the remainder of the first session. Across the same period, trackers cited an intraday high at $3.16 and a low at $0.7713. By the end of the first 24 hours referenced in the launch-day recaps, YZY was cited near $0.7722 with an indicative market capitalization of $231.66 million. Reported 24-hour trading volume stood at approximately $147.78 million, down about 85% from earlier intraday levels. These figures reflect snapshots from public market data pages captured during the first day.

On-Chain Distribution and Early Wallet Activity

On-chain analytics accounts published holdings maps and transaction timelines indicating that a small number of wallets controlled a substantial portion of the supply shortly after launch. Posts circulated showing one wallet with about 87% of supply at one point early in trading, while a cluster of insider-linked wallets was reported to hold roughly 94% collectively during the period covered by those summaries. Timelines compiled by on-chain watchers also showed activity interacting with the YZY contract address prior to the wider public’s entry into trading.

Community reporting prior to and around the launch described a notional token allocation in which 70% of supply would be held by West or a related entity, 20% would be set aside for investors, and 10% reserved for liquidity. Those proportions, cited in project-related discussions and wikis, were included in many first-day summaries and became a focal point as traders assessed potential supply overhang and the mechanics of liquidity.

Reported Profits and Losses

Analytics accounts that track wallet-level flows highlighted divergent outcomes. One wallet was reported to have lost about $1.8 million, and another roughly $500,000 in under two hours during the pullback. At the same time, several early buyers colloquially labeled “snipers” on social media were described as realizing significant profits by acquiring tokens in the first blocks and selling into subsequent demand. A visual analytics account identified the first buyer as a trader known as Naseem, previously reported as realizing large profits on a separate token. These observations were based on address-level transaction records and were widely reposted across crypto-focused social channels.

Community Reaction and Social Posts

Public commentary accompanied the launch. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes posted a message to West using the phrase “Pls don’t rug me Ye,” employing a term common in crypto discussions for the rapid withdrawal of liquidity or heavy selling by insiders. Other social media posts referenced the track record of celebrity-affiliated tokens and made predictions about potential outcomes; those posts represented the authors’ opinions and were not part of the numerical figures summarized above.

Separate posts alleged celebratory messages tied to insider transactions and large withdrawals on a personal Instagram account linked to someone involved with the token. A widely circulated clip was cited by critics; the source material provided for this report did not include a formal statement from the project responding to that specific video.