Don't buy the Kanye money. Do anything but buy the Kanye money. Don't buy it. Don't money your money with it. Don't money your money your money with it. Don't connect your wallet. Don't log in. Don't do anything with the Kanye money. Stay away from it. I don't know how to open this other than saying that. I just felt like that should be said off the bat.

But yes, hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, internet's busiest music nerd. And once again on this channel, we are talking about the one, the only, Mr. Kanye West, or as he is also known, Ye.

Now look, as of late, it's been no secret that my will to cover Kanye West, my interest in covering him as an artist, it's been shaky. And honestly, there hasn't really been a whole lot to cover.

Oh, what do you mean, Anthony? You don't want to talk about the Bully album or the Cuck album. You don't want to analyze the artistic merit of the fucking HH song?

However, one thing I will do is stop and take a moment to discuss what the hell is going on here? Let's just go to the clip.

"The official YZY token just dropped."

So there you have Ye right there, looking absolutely depressed and unemotional and maybe in a way, defeated, letting us all know that the YZY token is officially here, officially out, officially available. For somebody whose behavior over the past couple of years has obviously been very odd. Even this in itself seems very odd, and for a handful of reasons.

First off, Ye has at least historically seemed a little bit skeptical of the crypto world. I'm sure many of you remember that infamous Instagram post where he said he had no interest in doing anything with NFTs... yet. There was also that weird response he gave to a Jim Jones on Twitter that one time who, I guess, was starting to lay the groundwork for getting Kanye engrossed in crypto in some way, shape, or form, but a guy couldn't give him a PDF, which, sidebar, might actually be the way to pull Kanye out the weird conspiratorial rabbit holes he's been crawling into as of late. If we could give him all the information he needs in a PDF, maybe he'll be on a better path. I don't know.

What's for sure, nobody has given Kanye a PDF to get him to grasp why having anything to do with crypto at this point would be just a bad idea. Because in 2025, we are currently in an era where we have been subjected to years at this point, years of crypto and NFT scams and rug pulls, people getting ripped off left and right. And not only that, but numerous influencer and even musician fallouts who signed on to these really grimy, stupid crypto coin, shitcoin arrangements, only to have their fans ripped off in the process.

None of this is new at this point. None of this is exciting. You even have people like Coffeezilla who have built entire careers over calling this stuff out. In fact, he tweeted publicly telling people not to buy the YZY coin.

It's just funny to me that Kanye would get in on this now because who the hell would buy into this? Especially given his reputation at this point, this man can't even finish a proper album in his current state. He's supposed to manage a whole fucking crypto coin successfully?

And at the time of me shooting this video, pretty immediately after this coin was released and announced, apparently it's crashed 70%. So yeah, this coin, this venture, this whatever the hell you want to call it, pretty much doomed from the start.

Even though I don't really anticipate it's going to go anywhere from here, it might still be funny to go over the ways in which Kanye is laying the whole thing out and pitching it. As he says on the website where he's trying to get people in on this, "YZY Money is a concept to put you in control free from centralized authority."

Kanye, once again, trying to appeal to people on the front of being against the grain, being a free thinker, being a guy who's telling it like it is, and also trying to get you to spend your money on very much not real money, which will be accepted basically nowhere. I mean, maybe you can use YZY money to buy some YZY slides or YZY tights or some bullshit like that.

"YZY is the currency that powers all transactions within YZY money."

Okay, I think I'm grasping that concept. There's also this section of the website that says "YZYNOMICS", where it says the public LLC for this is YZY Investments. It also goes over the public supply and liquidity percentages. And then we have a bit of a frequently asked question section below this.

"What is YZY Money? YZY Money is a concept for a new financial system built on crypto rails."

How is that a new concept? I mean, obviously, it's a new coin, it's a new crypto option. But how exactly is this taking a new approach to crypto or doing anything significant among the saturation of other coins out there right now?

"What is Ye Pay? Ye Pay is a crypto payments processor that removes the high fees that merchants are accustomed to accepting credit card and crypto."

"What is YZY Card? Yeezy Card is a tool for spending Yeezy and USDC globally."

Hold on a second. Kanye is getting tied up all in my credit cards. I'm purchasing products on YZY credit? Maybe that's a conclusion I'm jumping to, but I just don't think Kanye should be getting all mixed up with our banking habits. There's also a bit that talks, again, about it being minted on the Solana blockchain, which, again, further contributes to my view of this, that it all just seems like very surface level. It's not changing up the crypto game or anything like that. Kanye is not reinventing the wheel here. This very short, very direct, minimal explainer presentation just comes across as very thrown together.

There's also a section about this very metallic, scuffed-up-looking YZY card, which allegedly can be used with "millions of merchants worldwide," I guess anybody that probably accepts USDC. But if everything that makes YZY money and pay and so on and so forth work is just based upon previously established financial and monetary norms that we all come to expect and we just know through regular everyday life.

How does this free us or break away from the current financial system or offer anything different? This just seems like just regular everyday money with extra steps, and I'm a parasocial Kanye psychopath, so I'm just getting off on the idea that I'm spending Kanye money or spending money with my Kanye card.

My favorite, favorite, favorite part of this website, though, is the fine print at the very bottom that honestly communicates more than in any section of this frequently asked questions list.

"YZY are intended to function as an expression of support for and or engagement with the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol 'YZY' and the associated artwork and are not intended to be or to be the subject of an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.

YZY is not available to persons or entities in restricted jurisdictions.

Users acknowledge that digital assets involve inherent risks and potential for complete loss."

So don't hold Kanye accountable for that complete loss if you do happen to experience it.

"Nothing on this site constitutes financial, legal, or investment advice."

So in other words, don't put too much stock in anything you're reading about this YZY Money on the YZY Money site, or take anything, again, that is being as "investment advice." What a nightmare, man. What a nightmare.

I'm not sure what else to say. One of the greatest and most influential musical artists of the past 20 years is slowly becoming a lolcow. I don't really know how else to put it. If he's not just already fully there.

I guess if there is a silver lining to this cloud, it's that Kanye waited to the point where probably very few people were going to put their money into this shit before dropping it and doing it. If he had actually put out something like this several years ago when it was new and at its peak, most likely a lot of people would have bought into this.

Down in the comments, let me know how much money you invested into YZY money. I'm sure you will. Let me know how much money you lost. I'm sorry for your loss, but it is what it is. You live and you learn.

Anthony Fantano. YZY Money. No, no, no, no, no.