Kanye West is now a Bitcoin clone

By Andrew Couts Published October 28, 2020

If you thought Internet-meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin was ridiculous, then Kanye-West-based altcoin Coinye West will probably just make you angry.

Named after Yeezus himself, Coinye West is set to launch on January 11, at 11pm ET, according to the cryptocoin’s creators, who tell Vice’s Noisey blog that they hope it will help bring the nebulous world of digital currencies into the mainstream.

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“Our goal with Coinye West is to make it easier for people to use cryptocurrency,” Coinye West’s unnamed creators tell Noisey. “Right now, it’s kind of a dark art for people to mine coins. We plan on releasing a front end to the “mining” programs called CoinyeMiner. It will make things a lot more simple and people will be able to make their own coins.”

Coinye West’s creators say they chose Kanye as their cryptocurrency mascot because “he is and always has been a trendsetter.” But despite the creators’ enthusiasm for the rapper, West has not endorsed the crypotocurrency, and is apparently no way involved with it – and that could be a problem.

“We’re really not sure how Kanye is gonna react to this,” says Coinye’s creators. “We hope he loves it, but if he doesn’t, he really isn’t someone we want to piss off.”

Coinye West is only the latest so-called altcoin to launch over the past year. Some, like Litecoin, trade at a fairly high value – though nothing close to the $750+ exchange rate Bitcoin currently enjoys. Most wallow in the fraction-of-a-penny range – a place where Coinye should probably get comfortable.

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Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

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