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Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who has repeatedly called himself a "Nazi" in recent weeks, plans to launch a crypto token, according to three sources close to the project. The token, YZY, is designed to help Ye side-step platforms like Shopify that have cut ties with him in response to his hateful rhetoric. Crypto, with its censorship-resistant ethos, offers Ye an alternative avenue for cashing in on his celebrity status: Seventy percent of the YZY token, named after Ye's Yeezy clothing brand, will be reserved for Ye personally, with just 10% allocated for liquidity provisioning and 20% for investors. Ye's foray into crypto comes on the heels of years of public controversy that have strained his business empire. In 2022, Ye was dropped by Adidas, Balenciaga and his talent agency after making a series of antisemitic comments, including praising Adolf Hitler in a live interview and tweeting inflammatory rhetoric about Jewish people and other groups. The fallout continued this year when Ye, after again calling himself a Nazi on X, listed a T-shirt bearing a swastika on the Yeezy website, leading e-commerce platform Shopify to shut down his online store. YZY is being packaged as the official currency of Yeezy and will be accepted as payment on his website. CoinDesk learned about the token through an email from Hussein Lalani, a person with a yeezy.com email address who identified himself as Yeezy's chief financial officer. After sending a document describing the token unsolicited, Lalani requested that CoinDesk hold off on publication and agree to an "embargo." CoinDesk did not agree to the embargo, and three sources close to the project authenticated the document. Lalani did not respond to further requests for comment. The YZY token was initially set to go for sale on Yeezy's website on Thursday at 6:00 p.m., but the launch was delayed to Friday, according to a team member who asked not to be identified for fear of associating publicly with the project. |
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The Industry’s Brightest Minds. One Unmissable Event.
Dealmaking. Networking. Big moves. Consensus 2025 is where the industry’s top players connect, innovate, and build what’s next. Don’t miss out. |
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In the process of giving up on the chance of any Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2025, investors Thursday got a modest dovish surprise from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic.
"I view the employment outlook as stable, but signs of slowing are accumulating," said Bostic in an essay. He noted that it's become harder for unemployed workers to find a job than a few months ago and job finding probabilities are lower now than they were prepandemic. "Consequently," said Bostic, "the average stint of unemployment is about three weeks longer than it was in August."
He's also expecting moderating inflation readings as the slowdown in rent increases being seen on platforms like Zillow and Redfin work their way into government price statistics.
Bostic called the current monetary stance of the Fed moderately restrictive and said he expects two interest rate cuts in 2025.
Both the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury and the greenback slipped a bit on the back of Bostic's comments, helping to boost the price of bitcoin (BTC) about 0.5% to $97,600. |
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Goldfinch Prime: A New Leader In The Emerging RWA Opportunity The tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market is experiencing a rapid surge, with VanEck projecting it will exceed $50 billion by 2025. In traditional finance, private credit loans provide non-bank financing, mainly to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This lending process has now evolved in the RWA space, creating on-chain private credit secured by real-world collateral. Continue reading |
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Stablecoins Need Regulation |
The absence of stablecoin regulation in the U.S. is one of the main hurdles to adoption, S&P Global Ratings said in a Wednesday report.
"The lack of regulation is one of the main impediments to stablecoin adoption in the U.S. and has prevented a broader institutional adoption of stablecoins," analysts led by Mohamed Damak wrote. S&P said it expects adoption to grow once regulation is in place.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is tied to another asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold. They play a major role in cryptocurrency markets and are also used for to transfer money internationally. New rules are coming. The Senate's Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act mandates federal regulation for stablecoins with a market cap of over $10 billion with the potential for state regulation if it aligns with federal rules. The House of Representatives STABLE Act calls for state regulation without any conditions. |
Altvest Starts BTC Treasury |
Altvest Capital (ALV) became the first listed company in Africa to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as a strategic treasury asset, the company said in a press release Friday.
Altvest said it bought one bitcoin for its strategic treasury, following a path set by Strategy (MSTR) in the U.S. and Metaplanet (3350) in Japan. The Johannesburg-based company paid 1.8 million rand ($98,200) for just over 1 BTC, and said it doesn't plan to buy alternative cryptocurrencies.
Altvest said it sees "bitcoin as the only digital asset that meets its stringent investment criteria for a long-term treasury allocation."
Corporates are increasingly adding bitcoin as a strategic treasury asset. Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy) pioneered the a move, starting to buy BTC in 2020. It now holds 478,740 bitcoin, worth more than $47 billion at current prices. The South African investment firm said the initiative to acquire bitcoin was "focused on preserving shareholder value, mitigating currency depreciation risks, and gaining exposure to a globally recognized store of value." |
The Takeaway: Future Enforcement |
By Robert A. Cohen Having served as the first chief of the SEC’s crypto unit from 2017 to 2019, I often am asked what to expect for crypto enforcement in the new administration. My first answer is that I do not know. My second answer is that I believe it will be different, but will not disappear. During the last four years, the SEC focused more of its enforcement activity on secondary markets—centralized trading platforms, decentralized protocols, etc. It is less clear how the federal securities laws apply to these markets. These transactions generally do not involve a central entrepreneur collecting money from investors and using it in a business. Instead, there are thousands or millions of crypto participants interacting with each other, sometimes anonymously via autonomous software. Token buyers might not know who sold them the tokens and there may be no central actor key to future success. Federal district courts have reached different conclusions, which are making their way to appellate courts. More broadly, enforcement became the dominant focus of SEC regulation. The SEC doubled the size of the crypto unit, creating new supervisory and trial attorney positions. It spent years and tremendous resources litigating several non-fraud cases. Many additional non-unit lawyers worked on crypto investigations. Crypto appeared to be the main focus of SEC enforcement. This approach did not generate useful guidance to the industry. Many SEC rules have technical aspects that are incompatible with the anonymous decentralized ledger that is blockchain technology. Under the enforcement approach of recent years, the very premise of the technology was treated not as a feature, but as a bug. The result was existential enforcement risk to a burgeoning industry and economic activity being pushed offshore. I do not believe the crypto industry wants a Wild West of no regulation. They want a sensible rulebook that makes compliance feasible. They also want regulators to crack down on fraud. No legitimate actor benefits from fraud in the industry. What does this mean for the next four years of enforcement? First, enforcement is just one component of regulation. We likely will see increased resources dedicated to the other parts of effective regulation—new guidance and rules that offer an achievable regulatory framework. Acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda recently announced a new crypto task force for developing a “sensible regulatory path,” and Commissioner Hester Peirce, who will lead the task force, included in her objectives “preserv[ing] industry’s ability to offer products and services.” Second, we could see a renewed focus on fighting fraud. The Commission did not stop bringing fraud cases during the last four years but many headline cases were non-fraud regulatory disputes. That might change; as Commissioner Peirce said, “We do not tolerate liars, cheaters, and scammers.” Third, once there is a new rulebook, we can expect the SEC to enforce those rules. That will take time. We might see a transition period, with some non-fraud cases but more focus on writing the new rulebook. Once adopted, enforcement of that rulebook could come after a fair notice period for the industry to adapt to it. |
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