Kanye West’s YZY Crypto Chaos: Pump, Dump, and the Insider Game

Kanye West’s much-hyped YZY crypto token hit the market on August 21, sparking a frenzy. Within just 40 minutes, the meme coin surged to a staggering $3 billion market cap. Excitement was high, and retail investors rushed in, hoping to ride the wave. But the euphoria didn’t last. The token lost two-thirds of its value within hours, leaving thousands of wallets deep in the red. By the end of the first day, YZY had dropped from $3.16 to around $0.77, a 74% collapse that crushed investor confidence.

YZY and the Sniper Wallets’ $24 Million Payday

While ordinary buyers lost big, a handful of insiders cashed out. Data from Nansen shows that 13 wallets made over $24 million in profit by dumping YZY at peak prices. These wallets acted fast, selling into the spike before retail traders even had a chance to react. Out of the first 99 wallets that bought the token, only nine still held YZY a day later. The biggest losers were retail buyers: one wallet lost $1.8 million, another $1.2 million, while several more held huge unrealized losses. The result was a classic transfer of wealth from everyday investors to coordinated insiders.

YZY and the Elite Snipers Behind the Dump

Blockchain sleuths uncovered that the first buyer of YZY was the same sniper who made $100 million trading Donald Trump’s TRUMP coin. Known by the handle “Naseem,” the trader was linked to a group of wallets behind the LIBRA token, where tens of millions were also extracted. Analysts say these snipers don’t compete but instead coordinate, timing their buys and sells to maximize profits. Bubblemaps called the YZY launch “worse than we thought,” suggesting a tight circle of crypto veterans orchestrated the dump. This raises deeper questions about how meme coins linked to celebrities are marketed versus who really profits.

YZY Joins the Celebrity Pump-and-Dump Club

Kanye West is not the first celebrity to step into crypto and spark a fiasco. TikTok influencer Haliey Welch’s HAWK coin crashed 90% within hours after launch. Kim Kardashian, Iggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner, and Lindsay Lohan have all faced accusations of promoting coins that ended in massive dumps. In each case, insiders pocketed millions while retail buyers bore the losses. The pattern is striking: celebrity branding creates the hype, insiders control supply, and retail investors are left holding worthless tokens. With YZY, history repeated itself on a bigger stage.

Arthur Hayes and the Industry’s Harsh Verdict

Crypto insiders were quick to react, and not kindly. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes mocked the YZY collapse, posting, “Oopsie… fam next time pls don’t let me trade shitters like YZY.” His words echoed the sentiment of many industry veterans who see celebrity-backed meme coins as traps for inexperienced investors. Others warned that all rapper-launched Solana coins eventually go to zero, and YZY is no different. The data backs them up: YZY’s trading volume has already plunged 85% from launch levels. For Kanye West, the dream of disrupting traditional finance with YZY may already be over.