The fall of Kanye West’s YZY cryptocurrency led to losses of more than 50,000 crypto wallets

Editor’s note: not investment advice!

Most investors in the YZY meme-coin, launched this month by rapper Kanye West on the Solana blockchain SOL $204.22 Binance-Peg SOL 2.33% Market capitalization $0.22 billion VOL. 24 hours $0.81 billion , have suffered losses, while a small group of wallets have made millions in profits. This is evidenced by data from the Bubblemaps analytical platform.

In total, 51,862 users out of 70,201 traders, or 73.8%, lost money, which amounts to $ 74.8 million. More than a thousand wallets recorded losses of more than $ 10,000. A total of 18,333 wallets made a profit of $ 66.6 million, but 86% of them earned less than $ 1,000. At the same time, almost 30% of all profits were concentrated on just 11 addresses.

YZY, or Yeezy Money, was launched by West on Wednesday and was actively promoted on social media and on the artist’s official website. The creators claimed that the token would help users control their own finances without the influence of centralized structures. However, within a few hours of the launch, its price plummeted by almost 70%. The crypto community said that the value of YZY was artificially inflated by insider trading and the use of bots for mass purchases at the start.

Bubblemaps claims that the first investor in the token was an anonymous trader under the pseudonym Naseem, who previously earned about $ 100 million on Donald Trump’s memecoin. In addition, it is known that Hayden Davis, who was involved in the failed Libra project and a number of other cryptocurrencies, received $ 12 million by sniping YZY.

«Last week demonstrated the failures of our industry. Despite the efforts of investigators, developers, and communities, the same names are repeating the same schemes again,» Bubblemaps said in a statement. The company noted that fraudsters use standard tactics: they enter large-scale launches in the early stages and withdraw millions, while most investors are left with losses. Earlier, West himself publicly spoke out against memecoins, considering them a way to manipulate fans.