President Donald Trump surprised the crypto industry when he launched a wildly successful memecoin last month, and ushered in a new era of celebrity interest in creating their own cryptocurrencies. But Kanye West, now known as Ye, will not be hopping on the trend. The rapper shut down rumors that he would create his own memecoin during an erratic return to social media platform X over the weekend—before deleting his entire account.
West seemed to initially express interest in memecoins last Friday, writing: “WHEN PEOPLE MAKE ALL THAT MONEY WITH A COIN IS THAT CASH OR CONCEPT.”
Prominent crypto enthusiasts were quick to suggest the rapper capitalize on the memecoin craze. Pump.fun, the Solana-based crypto trading platform behind many viral memecoin launches, responded to one of West’s posts by advocating for him to “channel Andrew Tate and launch a coin.” Tate, an internet influencer known for his controversial opinions about women, launched a memecoin in July that initially climbed to a market cap of more than $120 million before dipping to less than $20 million.
However, West said that he had already turned down a multimillion-dollar deal to promote a “fake ye currency.”
“I was proposed $2 million to scam my community. Those left of it. I said no and stopped working with their person who proposed it,” he wrote. He included a screenshot of a conversation with an unnamed person outlining the details of the offer.
Although he shut down speculation about a potential memecoin, West didn’t rule out interest in crypto altogether. Later on Sunday, West posted a screenshot of a text conversation with an unidentified person in which the rapper requested to speak with Brian Armstrong, the CEO of major crypto exchange Coinbase. West said that he wanted to have a conversation “concerning crypto,” according to a caption written alongside the screenshot.
West is out of the memecoin game, but other celebrities are all in. Dave Portnoy, the president of media company Barstool Sports, is promoting his own memecoin, $JAILSTOOL, which launched on crypto exchange Kraken on Sunday. Following the launch, Portnoy wrote on X that he put “100s of thousands of my own money into #jailstool.” The cryptocurrency initially reached a market cap of $200 million, but has dropped 75% over the past 24 hours.
The $JAILSTOOL memecoin follows other crypto boosting from Portnoy. On Friday, he began promoting multiple memecoins on X, including the Josh Allen MVP coin—a cryptocurrency celebrating the Buffalo Bills quarterback—and a coin called “Montoya Por Favor” named after a viral meme from a Spanish reality-TV show. The two memecoins skyrocketed to market caps of more than $10 million each before crashing to fractions of that.
Portnoy said that regardless of $JAILSTOOL’s recent crash, he will continue to hold on to the cryptocurrency. “I won’t sell a dime till 1 billion,” he wrote on X. “I’m still holding it all. Coulda sold at 6 million. Didn’t.”
