Kanye West inspired cryptocurrency rushes release following cease and desist order

Coinye now available to users following legal action from 'Yeezus' rapper

Lawyers representing Kanye West have filed a cease and desist order against the creators of Coinye West, a new cryptocurrency inspired by the ‘Yeezus’ rapper.


As reported last week, the new online crytocurrency named after West was set to launch later this month. The coins are now available to users around the world after lawyers working for the rapper contacted the seven coders behind the project, claiming copyright infringement.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a lawyer working for West wrote in the court order: “Given Mr. West’s wide-ranging entrepreneurial accomplishments, consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Mr. West is the source of your services.”

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In response to this, the coders have renamed their currency simply Coinye and relocated their web domain to India. “We want to release this to the public before the man can try to crush it,” a coder told the paper on January 6. “They’ll still come after us, but that’s OK.”

The creators of Coinye West previously revealed hopes that they will get the official backing of West, offering him 100,000 coins if he name checks their currency. “We’d love if Kanye named dropped Coinye. I think he’s gonna love that there’s a currency named in his honor. We don’t want to pay him off to name check us, but it’d be sick if he does so,” they said anonymously in a recent interview.

Meanwhile, West recently promised not to say anything controversial for “six months”. Speaking onstage in Toronto in December, the rapper made his final rant of the year, but said it would be the last time he would do so for a while, saying that fans would have to re-listen to old interviews if they wanted to hear “some realness”.

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