Kanye West’s meme coin YZY came crashing down barely hours after rocketing past the $3 billion market cap threshold.
In an X post on Thursday, the controversial American rapper promoted YZY as a “New Economy, Built On Chain,” sharing both its contract address and website.
The post ignited the initial buying frenzy around the meme coin and pushed its market cap above $3 billion within forty minutes of its launch.
However, due to suspicious fund movements by insiders and the centralized control of its tokenomics, questions regarding the legitimacy of YZY began to gain ground.
Blockchain trackers, including Lookonchain, raised insider trading alerts, revealing that not less than 95% of the supply is controlled by four wallet addresses, as against the larger population that West claimed the project will serve.
And amid growing skepticism from fans and analysts, YZY suffered a brutal hit, losing nearly 74% of its value in less than 24 hours and leaving thousands of retail investors with big losses.
But the dramatic price swings didn’t come as a surprise to many, considering its launch followed the same controversial pattern with other celebrity rug pulls like LIBRA that hurt many degens earlier this year.
At the time of writing, the Solana meme coin is trading around $0.7, down 74% from its all-time high of $3. The market cap? It’s currently hovering around $200 million, having lost over two-thirds of its peak value.
Unsurprisingly, even the latest broader market recovery, sparked by the Fed’s September rate cut plan, has done nothing to shift the bearish sentiment around the token. Is YZY finally dead?
How Kanye West’s Meme Coin Turns Into A Pump-and-Dump Nightmare
YZY arrived on Solana on Thursday, August 21st, 2025, and was immediately listed on Bitget. The release took the market by storm, with the price officially breaking all market fundamentals to reach a peak of $3 within an hour. In fact, at one point, it reached a market capitalization of $3 billion.
According to Ye, the whole idea behind the launch of this meme coin is to power the Yeezy Money system. However, the YZY fever didn’t last long, as insiders rushed to sell the tokens, leaving regular investors with devastating losses.
Ye himself drew massive criticism for the project, with many saying it embodied exactly what he once warned about in his February 2025 “coins preying on fans” X post.
YZY’s tokenomics is also subject to major controversy. Coinbase director Conor Grogan noted that 94% of the supply was initially controlled by insiders, with one multisig wallet holding 87% before distribution. On-chain data also shows that 70% of the supply is allocated to Yeezy Investments LLC, with claims of a 24-month vesting period.
The biggest red flag, however, lies in the way a few insider wallets, seemingly aware of the correct contract address, swooped in the moment it went live. But at the time of writing, just nine out of the first 99 addresses that purchased YZY are still holding, a clear sign of a coordinated pump-and-dump scheme.
Data from Nansen paints a clearer picture, showing how the top 10 wallets alone pocketed a combined profit of more than $18 million from the scheme. One single entity, for instance, made a profit of $8 million after initially investing about $2.28 million.
While these insiders secured huge returns, regular investors are left nursing steep losses. One trader, for example, lost nearly $1.8 million.
More so, out of 56,050 wallets that touched the token, onchain data shows that 19,125 lost between $500 and $1 million, intensifying calls for a full-fledged investigation.
For now, preliminary findings, especially from Bubblemaps, linked the insiders to a number of similar releases in the past. The token’s first buyer “Naseem,” for instance, was among the snipers that pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from TRUMP and LIBRA projects earlier this year. The pattern with which these wallets strike reflect a deep, well-scripted market manipulation.
Is the YZY Meme Coin Dead?
Given that the YZY market cap is still hovering around $200 million at press time, it is safe to say that it is not completely dead.
However, its price action has now stagnated, and even the broader market relief rally has done nothing to spark renewed momentum.
CoinMarketCap shows that the sentiment around this token is nowhere nearly as bullish as it was a few minutes after it launched.
And considering the fact that a few insiders associated with failed celebrity meme coins like LIBRA control around 90% of its total supply, retail investors will continue to remain extremely vulnerable to more dramatic dumps, just like the one witnessed in the last 48 hours.
Therefore, rather than buying the dip, attention should be put on other Solana meme coin alternatives with unique branding, practical utility, and immense growth potential.
This Utility Solana Meme Coin May Be an Underrated Alternative
With insiders and snipers linked to LIBRA and TRUMP still dominating the YZY market and constantly dumping their holdings, analysts anticipate further downward swings in the coming days, potentially leaving regular degens with more brutal losses.
It is therefore not without that reason that more and more smart money investors are flocking to other Solana meme coins, such as Wall Street Pepe.
Thankfully, Wall Street Pepe brings together the charm of meme coins with a functional ecosystem built to fight against whales, cabals, and shady insiders who always seem to win while retail investors lose out.
Launched in February 2025 after a spectacular presale outing, WEPE grew quickly on Ethereum, and its latest jump to Solana is pushing it even further. It’s no secret that Solana has been a hub for meme coins, owing to its lightning-fast speed, ultra-low fees, and highly active community.
By pegging its Solana token 1:1 with the Ethereum version, the project eliminates the dilution and confusion that often characterizes multichain expansions. Basically, every token purchase on Solana reduces supply on Ethereum, balancing liquidity across both chains and boosting long-term sustainability.
Meanwhile, the project’s trading alpha community, known as the “WEPE Army,” has gained significant traction, proving its influence with consistent calls that help members capitalize on opportunities they otherwise would have missed out on. In fact, some of the calls returned between 500% to 1,000% on meme coins like Pudgy Penguins. This trading-focused utility gives it an edge over meme coins that rely solely on speculative hype.
Leading names in the industry, including Amira Blake have covered the project’s multichain expansion news, explaining how the move could attract a broader investor base and potentially boost its price.
Buy Wall Street Pepe
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