Insiders and LIBRA snipers hijack Kanye’s $3B YZY coin
Kanye West’s newly-launched YZY token, which briefly soared to a $3 billion market cap earlier today, is at least 94% owned by insiders.
That’s according to Coinbase Director Conor Grogan, who also noted that 87% of the supply was owned by a single multisig wallet that later dispersed tokens to other wallets.
Despite its impressive start, the token dropped back 89% to $320 million in just 30 minutes.
YZY was created three days prior to its public launch at 2:53 am UTC+1 and started pumping at 2:54 am UTC+1. According to crypto analyst Lookonchain, “Multiple insider wallets prepared funds in advance and immediately bought $YZY.”
Read more: Kanye West said ‘coin’ on X and memecoin degens are frothing
Crypto sleuth Dethective claims someone sniped the YZY launch for $1.8 million before sending the funds to a treasury wallet that also received over $20 million from two LIBRA snipers with “inside information.”
Multiple users on X speculated that LIBRA founder Hayden Davis is somehow behind YZY. The recent scrapping of a court order fueled this speculation, as many believed it freed up over $57 million in USDC for Davis.
This sum, however, is still technically frozen by the stablecoin firm Circle.
Lookonchain also noted that the dev behind YZY’s launch can sell their tokens by adding or removing liquidity, similar to the launch of LIBRA.
Dethective says, however, that he doesn’t know if it’s the work of Davis. He added, “We can be sure this is someone with clear inside info.”
The poor optics of the launch was picked up by crypto influencer Gainzsy, who noted that the launch’s pump-and-dump nature meant West stuck to promoting the token on X and not to his 19.7 million followers on Instagram.
Profitable YZY trader had Kanye’s number months ago
One YZY buyer, Mikey Shelton, filmed himself celebrating the token’s initial pump. Shelton is possibly an inside trader as he was spotted sending Kanye a text “concerning crypto” during Kanye’s previous crash out.
Shelton claims to have made $160,000 in the first 10 minutes after YZY’s launch. Some traders weren’t so lucky, as former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes claimed, “fam next time pls don’t let me trade shitters like $YZY. Should have just kept two-steppin.”
While being a highly speculative token, YZY is marketed as a means to avoid “high-fee systems,” streamline his shop’s checkout experience, and “free from centralized authority.”
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