Meteora Captures $16M in a Day Thanks to Kanye West’s Meme Coin Frenzy

Kanye West’s YZY token has created one of the most talked-about moments in the crypto market this year.

Its ripple effects have been most visible in Solana’s decentralized exchange (DEX) ecosystem.

Meteora in Spotlight

According to DeFiLlama data, the launch of YZY injected so much liquidity and speculative frenzy into Solana that Meteora, a rising DEX, recorded a whopping $1.182 billion in trading volume on August 21st. As a result, Meteora managed to overtake long-time leader Raydium as the most active Solana-based exchange.

This milestone was not just about volume; Meteora also raked in $16.05 million in fees during the same period, second only to Tether in terms of fee generation across the crypto industry

Meteora’s spike demonstrated how a celebrity-driven token can act as a short-term catalyst for trading platforms by driving both activity and revenue in ways that even major DeFi protocols rarely achieve. Despite this, beneath the surface, the YZY mania highlights deeper issues about celebrity tokens, insider activity, and retail vulnerability that plague the crypto industry.

Santiment captured the mood well as it revealed how the YZY token soared to a $3 billion market cap almost overnight, only to crash by more than 60% amid rumors of insider dumping. The hype was undeniable: West’s first foray into crypto contradicted his own public stance earlier this year, when he rejected launching a meme coin by calling them a way to “prey on fans with hype.”

His reversal fueled the frenzy as it drew in both fans and opportunistic traders, but the aftermath left latecomers nursing heavy losses.

YZY Rigged?

On-chain analysis by Dethective deepened the controversy and exposed how certain wallets managed to acquire large allocations of YZY at just $0.20, while most traders entered at a higher price.

One such wallet flipped a $250,000 buy into nearly $1 million in profit in just eight minutes before moving the funds to a treasury wallet. This wallet was later tied to suspiciously similar profit-making strategies used during the LIBRA token launch, which raised suspicions of insider coordination.

In total, these wallets extracted close to $23 million across YZY and LIBRA by exploiting early access advantages.