Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps released a report on Aug. 25 alleging that Hayden Davis coordinated a sniping operation on Kanye West’s YZY token that generated $12 million in profits through 14 connected wallets.

The investigation began with a timing analysis showing Davis, also known as Kelsier, received access to $57 million in previously frozen funds, with YZY launching the following day.

Davis has faced previous controversies related to the LIBRA token collapse, where he denied fraud and insider trading accusations.

A US judge unfroze $57.6 million in USDC stablecoins tied to the LIBRA token scandal on Aug. 20, giving Davis and former Meteora DEX CEO Ben Chow access to funds that were frozen in May as part of a class-action lawsuit.

Bubblemaps tracked several addresses funded from centralized exchanges the day before YZY’s launch, discovering a cluster prepared to snipe the token through funding transactions, Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol transfers, and shared deposits linking back to Davis.

The connected wallets purchased YZY tokens as early as 1:54 A.M. UTC, just one minute after the announcement. The firm noted this pattern reflects Davis’s previous involvement in sniping high-profile tokens, including MELANIA and LIBRA.

Bubblemaps said it could not confirm whether Davis had insider information or direct connections to the YZY team, but documented the coordinated purchasing pattern and profit extraction.

The investigation continues as blockchain forensics firms examine celebrity token launches for potential manipulation.

Controversial launch followed by price colapse

YZY’s controversial launch saw trading activity drive its market capitalization near $3 billion before collapsing within hours.

The token initially attracted rapid inflows, pushing its fully diluted valuation into multibillion-dollar territory before prices retreated more than 90%, leaving its capitalization closer to $137 million.

Independent analysis from Conor Grogan estimated that 94% of the initial supply was controlled by insiders, including a single multisig wallet that held 87% of tokens before dispersing.

The YZY pool featured a 1% base fee with dynamic adjustments reaching 2.68%, combined with wider bin steps introducing additional 4-5% slippage, creating estimated 10% round-trip costs for traders.

YZY is down 82% from its all-time high of $3.1633 and was trading at $0.5670 as of press time.

Mentioned in this article

Former kickboxing champion and controversial influencer Andrew Tate is among the latest celebrities to dive into Kanye West’s newly launched YZY token, but his bets are already deep in the red.

A wallet address linked to Tate opened a 3x leveraged short position on the recently launched, West-linked YZY token at $0.85 and was sitting on a $16,000 loss on the position.

Tate “doesn’t seem to be good at perps trading,” as his cumulative losses are nearing $700,000 on this single Hyperliquid account, wrote blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain in a Friday X post. “So far, he’s made 80 trades on #Hyperliquid — only 29 were profitable (win rate: 36.25%) — with total losses of $699K.”

The YZY token was launched on Solana on Thursday by the rapper, with the top 13 wallets profiting a total of $24.5 million as they dumped the token, which spiked 1,400% within the first hour before dropping over 74% since.

Related: Ether trader nearly wiped out after epic run from $125K to $43M

With growing celebrity interest in cryptocurrencies, more influencers are realizing losses, showing that not all financial advice or investment endorsements should be treated equally. 

The losing trade comes more than a year after Tate was hit by insider trading allegations related to his memecoin, the Daddy Tate (DADDY) token, which saw insiders scoop up 30% of the supply at launch before Tate started promoting the token on X, Cointelegraph reported at the time. 

Related: $1.6B Bitcoin whale shifts another $113M BTC into $240M Ether long

Most Andrew Tate-endorsed memecoins crashed by 99%

Tate joined waves of celebrities who jumped on the Solana memecoin bandwagon on June 7, 2024, endorsing more than 10 tokens known for having no intrinsic value.

Most of the tokens lost around 99% of their value shortly after Tate’s endorsement, with multiple tokens allegedly having up to 30% insider supply allocation, Bubblemaps warned in an X post in October 2024.

These included Roost (ROOST), the Germany Token (GER), Fuck Tristan (FTRISTAN), TopG (TOPG), RNT (RNT) and Daddy Tate (DADDY).

Over 30 celebrity-endorsed tokens launched on Solana in June 2024 and have seen prices fall by no less than 73.23%.

Other celebrities who promoted Solana-based meme tokens include 50 Cent, Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea and soccer legend Ronaldinho Gaúcho.

UFC contender Khamzat Chimaev-linked Smash (SMASH) token was also hit by insider allegations after it was revealed that up to 78% of the token’s supply was bought by team and developer-related wallets, Cointelegraph reported in July 2024.

Three days after the token launch, Chimaev’s manager, Majdi Shammas, claimed that the martial artist “wasn’t involved” with the SMASH memecoin and “[knows] just as little as you do,” alleging that he promoted the coin without the fighter’s input.

Magazine: Altcoin season 2025 is almost here… but the rules have changed

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/andrew-tate-shorts-kanye-wests-yzy-racks-up-700k-losses-on-hyperliquid/feed/ 0 54537 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/cardano-founder-hoskinson-shuts-down-kanye-west-rumors/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/cardano-founder-hoskinson-shuts-down-kanye-west-rumors/#respond Mon, 24 Feb 2025 07:16:57 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/cardano-founder-hoskinson-shuts-down-kanye-west-rumors/

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has categorically dismissed rumors linking hip-hop artist Kanye West, now known as Ye, to a proposed token launch on the Cardano blockchain. In a brief video posted on X (formerly Twitter), Hoskinson poured cold water on speculation that Ye might roll out a cryptocurrency project under Cardano’s umbrella.

No Kanye West Project on Cardano

“Hey guys, I wanted to make a quick video to say Kanye West is not going to launch something on Cardano,” Hoskinson said. “I know some people are talking about it, but it doesn’t even look like he’s actually doing anything of value. Looks like he sold his Twitter account for 17 million dollars to the Barkmeta guys for them to do a scam. Even if he didn’t, I don’t think we want that. It’s too much drama.”

He added: “Cardano is a serious project. We’re not a launching place for these types of things. So thank you all for the drama for the weekend, but I don’t think there’s any Kanye at all.”

Notably, the controversy began on Friday, when three sources close to Ye’s circle claimed that the artist was planning to release a token named YZY—a nod to his Yeezy fashion brand. According to these sources, 70% of the token’s allocation would be reserved for Ye, with 10% going toward liquidity provisioning and 20% set aside for investors.

Rumors suggested that YZY would serve as a means for Ye to bypass mainstream payment and e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, which cut ties with him in response to recent antisemitic statements and other hate-filled rhetoric. Ye’s moves in the crypto space are seen by some as a potential lifeline after he was dropped by key partners, including Adidas and Balenciaga, for praising Adolf Hitler and making repeated antisemitic remarks in live interviews and on social media.

In parallel with talk of Ye’s crypto ambitions, whispers circulated that the artist sold his personal X account (@kanyewest) for $17 million to a memecoin group known as @barkmeta, presumably to facilitate a large-scale scam. Crypto influencer, Loki The Bird (@lokithebird), fueled the speculation by writing: “Kanye West sold his account to the BarkMeta Doginals crew for $17M—they’re gearing up to scam the entire space. Share for awareness and save Web3.”

There was also an image circulating, showing two phones allegedly logged into @barkmeta and @kanyewest simultaneously. However, Ye swiftly denied any involvement with these individuals or any sale of his account, stating, “This is fake, I don’t know this person.”

Hoskinson’s dismissal of any official connection to Ye underscores Cardano’s broader commitment to maintaining its position as a “serious project.” While the open-source nature of blockchain technology means that permission is not strictly required to build on Cardano, Hoskinson clarified: “He wants money and help to launch it. No one serious in Cardano is going to do it,”effectively closing the door on any partnership.

At press time, ADA traded at $0.74.

Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com

Plus: Did a whole country just rug pull?

GM. Some crypto days are sweet strawberries, others are moldy kiwis – and we’ve sifted through the weird mix so you don’t have to.

Kanye West didn’t pull the rug, but DaBaby and the Central African Republic might have.

News drops: the University of Austin is hopping on the BTC train, Pump(.)fun co-founder responds to allegations + more

Market flavor today

Mood of the day: not great, not terrible.

The Fear & Greed Index is still stuck in neutral, at 43 today. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s been bouncing between $96K and $98K since Friday.

Enthusiasm took a bit of a beating thanks to Donald Trump’s continued trade battles – he now wants a 25% tariff on any steel or aluminum shipped into the US.

On top of that, he’s threatening to match tariffs on countries that charge extra for American goods, and he has plans for new tariffs on the EU, superconductors, oil, gas, steel, and copper.

What does this mean for crypto?

• Investors could see Bitcoin as a hedge against economic instability;

• On the other hand, if global trade slows down and the economy takes a hit, riskier assets – including crypto – might struggle to attract investments.

And rn, markets are still trying to figure out which way this will go.

However, according to economist Alex Krüger, the shock from Trump’s tariff plans won’t last long – instead, people will start focusing on how his government operates.

Krüger believes Trump is good for crypto in the long run, but the short-term outlook depends on the Fed. Many hope for rate cuts, but the Fed is waiting to see if tariffs cause economic trouble before making a move.

Krüger’s best estimate? A rate cut in June.

Meanwhile, Bill Barhydt, the founder and CEO of Abra, has some ambitious targets for the current crypto cycle:

• Bitcoin around $350K;

• Ethereum at $8k;

• Solana at $900;

• Sui at $25.

And if things go really well, he thinks prices could double these estimates.

His reasoning? The US government is heavily motivated to push interest rates lower because of its $7T debt that needs refinancing. Lower rates make it cheaper to manage this debt.

To push rates down, the government may cut taxes and flood the financial system with liquidity, which essentially means pumping more money into the economy.

Now, here’s where crypto comes in: whenever there’s an increase in liquidity, risk assets – which include stocks and crypto – tend to benefit the most. That’s cuz more money in the system = investors have more capital to deploy.

That said, not everyone’s convinced of a smooth ride ahead. BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes warns that as people realize Trump’s election hasn’t dramatically changed US politics, crypto prices could drop back to $70K – $75K.

So, while some see explosive growth, others think a pullback is still in the cards. Either way, volatility is surely here to stay.

Memecoin harvest

These tokens are the party crashers of crypto – no plan, no invite, but they’re the center of attention

	Name		24H Change
	Central African Republic Meme CAR		▲ 135K%
	TCC TCC		▲ 14.2K%
	Liberland Dollar LLD		▲ 754%
	Solana Social Explorer SSE		▲ 130%

Data as of 06:50 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

If you’re into hip-hop, you’ve probably already seen Ye (or Kanye West, if we’re talking birth certificates) having… a moment again.

This isn’t even about his controversial Grammy appearance (which was wild, btw) – the stuff he’s been posting on X has been super unhinged, to say the least (well, before his account was deactivated).

And in the middle of all that mess, he dropped something interesting:

So yeah, apparently, he was offered $2M to launch a memecoin and said no.

I guess kind of surprising that a guy who did all this drew the line at scamming his fans.

But you know who wasn’t too good for that? Another rapper, DaBaby.

He launched the BABY memecoin – it immediately hit $27M in trading volume, but then, in five minutes, the price decreased by 33%.

UN-BE-LIE-VA-BLE!! A celebrity pump and dump? No way… who could’ve seen that coming?

Yeah, obviously, we all know the drill with these launches – insiders buy in early, hype builds, people FOMO in, the rug gets pulled, and the insiders walk away with bags while everyone else holds worthless tokens.

Nothing new.

But you know what is new? We just had a whole COUNTRY launching a memecoin.

Yes, the Central African Republic dropped its own memecoin, CAR, except… nobody really knows if it’s legit or not.

The official X account of CAR’s president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, announced that the government had launched an experimental token meant to “unite people” and “support national development.”

Naturally, people thought his account got hacked. But here’s the thing: the post stayed up for over 15 hours – way longer than most hacked posts before they get deleted

Then came a video announcement, which some AI tools flagged as a deepfake. But these same tools have also messed up in the past with legit interviews from the president

So… could it be real? Well, blockchain analysts found that CAR’s distribution matched the allocation on its official website.

FYI: for a token launched on Pump(.)fun (where literally anyone can create a fake token), this level of accuracy in distribution is highly unlikely unless it is official.

But regardless of whether it’s real or fake, the market reaction was insane.

Within 12 hours, CAR hit a $850M market cap. For some perspective, the Central African Republic’s entire GDP is $2.4B – so that memecoin briefly reached about 30% of the nation’s whole economy.

And it gets even crazier. One X user, @Linkkzyy, claims there was a “test version” of the same token (same image, ticker, description, dev wallet, etc.) launched two days before that was hard rugged – meaning investors got completely wiped out. Then, they apparently launched the “real” version afterward.

So, if that’s true, it means we might’ve just witnessed the world’s first memecoin rugged by a country.

…Flying cars, they said.

News drops

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino thinks quantum computers will eventually crack old, untouched Bitcoin wallets and put those coins back into circulation. That’s a problem for the far future, tho’.

The University of Austin plans to invest $5M in BTC. As investment chief Chun Lai put it, better in now than left behind later.

Pump.fun was blamed for ruining the altcoin cycle last year, but co-founder Alon Cohen responded that retail simply lost interest in tech altcoins. He argued that memecoins were already popular, and Pump(.)fun just made it easier to trade what people actually wanted.

The infamous UK landfill – home to one man’s lost hard drive with 8,000 BTC – is set to close. The site has been in use since the early 2000s and will be capped within two years.

Not sure if BYDFi is worth your time? We broke it down so you can decide if it’s a hit or a hard pass.

Juicy memes

The perceived odds of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, launching a token have plummeted after he posted on social media that he is “not doing a coin” in a post where he added that “coins prey on the fans with hype.”

That post saw the perceived odds of Kanye launching a token this month, which at one point reached 40% on the popular prediction market Polymarket, plunge to around 10% as traders reacted to it.

Various memecoins, called “Ye,” have popped up since the rapper started the conversation about crypto on social media, in anticipation that the rapper is going to launch a token. However, after the denial, these have seen their value plunge. One of the tokens has lost more than 65% of its value since the rapper’s post, while a second one is down 89%, according to Dexscreener data.

Ye’s post, in which he said he only does things he is “passionate and knowledgeable about” while being “too rich to do anything else,” came after a previous one in which the rapper said he turned down a $2 million offer to launch his own token. After his posts, the rapper appeared to want to get in touch with Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, in a cryptic post.
Read more: JPMorgan Closed Kanye’s Account. Yes, There’s a Crypto Angle

American rapper and record producer Kanye West has been in the news lately following his surprise appearance at the Grammys 2025. The hip-hop superstar has been actively posting on X, teasing a possible crypto collaboration with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

‘Crypto Yeezy’? 

In a February 7 post on X, West shared that he was offered $2 million to promote a fraudulent cryptocurrency project in his name. This revelation came amid the series of erratic, abusive, and somewhat disturbing posts made by the 47-year-old singer.

According to the chat screenshot, Kanye West was offered an up-front payment of $750,000 for the promotional contract. The arrangement would also include a subsequent payment of $1.25 million 16 hours after the billionaire rapper posts about the project.

The captured messages showed that West would then be supposed to announce to the public that his X account was hacked and the post was not from him. This scheme was projected to rob unsuspecting fans and crypto community members of “tens of millions of dollars.”

Kanye West mentioned that he refused the offer and cut his work relationship with the individual who proposed it. Despite the abusive and anti-semitic posts that followed this revelation, several members of the online community and crypto projects urged the Hollywood star to launch a coin.

Source: X

Most notably, Solana-based token generation and trading platform Pump.fun responded to one of West’s posts — about “channeling Andrew Tate”, encouraging him to launch his own cryptocurrency. However, Kanye West appears not to be considering the platform for his crypto endeavors.

In a post on X captioned “concerning crypto,” West shared another chat screenshot where he asked an anonymous associate to “resend that crypto connect.” This individual responded with “Brian Armstrong, CEO & Founder of Coinbase,” saying they would ask for the crypto founder’s phone number.

Celebrity Tokens Making A Return In 2025?

Kanye West wouldn’t be the first Hollywood celebrity to launch a token if he were to do so. Notably, rapper Iggy Azalea launched her Mother Iggy (MOTHER) token in May 2024, garnering significant attention at a time when celeb token launches were in fashion.

Other celebrities allegedly involved in token launches in the past year include Davido, French Montana, and Lil Pump. While Kanye West is one of the biggest names in the global music industry and pop culture, his erratic and controversial nature adds an interesting dimension to how investors will approach a token launched in his name.

The total crypto market cap on the daily timeframe | Source: TOTAL chart on TradingView

Featured image from Matt Winkelmeyer, chart from TradingView