Kanye West drops YZY meme coin on Solana

Key Takeaways

Kanye West launched the YZY meme coin and payment ecosystem on Solana.
YZY token offers anti-sniping features, vesting via Jupiter Lock, and is tradable on Meteora.

Kanye West, now known as Ye Ye, officially released YZY, a new crypto token on the Solana blockchain, joining celebrities who have previously ventured into digital assets with mixed success, the rapper mogul announced late Wednesday on X, sharing a self-filmed video confirming the launch.

The YZY token briefly hit a $3 billion market value following Ye’s announcement, GeckoTerminal data shows.

Ye also revealed plans for a payment ecosystem called YZY Money.

The project includes YZY token, Ye Pay payment processor, and YZY Card for spending digital assets. The token operates with a total supply distributed across public allocation (20%), liquidity (10%), and vested tranches for Yeezy Investments LLC (70%).

The system employs an anti-sniping mechanism that deployed 25 contract addresses, with only one selected as the official YZY token.

“This dissuades snipers by making it a 1/25 chance for selection of the right CA, putting power back into the hands of real traders,” according to the project documentation.

YZY Money is described as “a concept for a new financial system, built on crypto rails,” while Ye Pay aims to reduce merchant fees by “accepting credit card and crypto.” The YZY Card will enable users to spend YZY and USDC globally.

The token’s vesting schedule uses Jupiter Lock, an open-sourced and audited protocol, with three tranches featuring different cliff periods and 24-month vesting terms. Trading is available through Meteora on Solana, with the official liquidity pool address published.

This is a developing story. Please come back for further updates.