Kanye West’s Instagram hacked and now follows fake YZY coin account

Key Takeaways

• Kanye West's Instagram account was reportedly hacked.
• The hack aimed to promote the fraudulent $YZY memecoin.

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Hackers took over the Instagram account of Kanye West, who now calls himself Ye Ye, on Tuesday and followed a counterfeit YZY Money profile, the rapper confirmed in a post on X. The fake YZY Money account promoted a bogus YZY coin on its profile.

The fake YZY token briefly surged to a fully diluted valuation of more than $7 million before collapsing to just $82,000, according to GeckoTerminal data .

Ye’s official YZY token fared little better. Launched last week as part of the YZY Money payment system, it spiked to over $400 million in market capitalization but has since tumbled below $75 million.

YZY token launch raises questions about Libra team connection

Blockchain analysis firm Bubblemaps claims crypto trader Hayden Davis made $12 million by sniping West’s YZY token launch.

Davis, who facilitated the launch of LIBRA , was able to purchase YZY tokens within one minute of the public announcement, according to Bubblemaps’ Monday report.

On-chain analysis revealed that $57 million of Davis’ funds were unfrozen just one day before the YZY launch. Multiple wallets traced to Davis through funding flows and shared deposits were funded from centralized exchanges shortly before the YZY token went live.

While investigators have not conclusively proven Davis had insider information or connections to the YZY team, the timing and scale of the purchases have drawn scrutiny. Davis has previously been connected to other high-profile meme coin snipe trades, including the MELANIA token.

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