How Kanye West’s Crypto Pivot Is Fueling Antisemitism and Nazi-Themed Meme Coins

Tens of thousands of crypto degens are hailing the musician Ye—formerly known as Kanye West—as their führer in the hopes that he’ll announce that an existing Solana meme coin is his long-teased official token. And these communities have become a breeding ground for antisemitism and Nazi ideologies, echoing the artist’s own comments in recent years.

When accusations of antisemitism are leveled against these meme coin communities, questionable comments are brushed off as just a joke or met with a defense for the artistic merit of the token. But there’s evidence within these groups of Nazi sympathizing, Holocaust denial, and harmful stereotyping festering—causing experts to warn that memes can be the first step towards radicalization.

Ye has been hinting at the possibility of releasing a meme coin for a while now, including meeting up with crypto influencer Ansem and supposedly texting Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong as he apparently figures out his next steps.

The rapper has yet to officially launch a coin, as the crypto industry hype has ebbed in recent weeks amid broader meme coin market turmoil. As of this writing, just 34% of bettors  on prediction market platform MYRIAD believe that Ye will drop a coin by April 20. (Disclosure: MYRIAD is owned by Decrypt's parent company, DASTAN.)

Along the way, countless unofficial Ye-themed meme coins have pumped, dumped, and disappeared—but a few have stuck around with some level of traction.

Swasticoin (YZY), which has a logo combining the swastika with Ye’s name, reached a $181 million market cap after the rapper reposted the contract address last week. But it has since collapsed under $4.5 million. Still, a community has formed around the token that believes that it’s the real deal, with over 14,600 wallets currently holding the token, according to DEX Screener. 

Pseudonymous trader Dluxx told Decrypt that he is Jewish and doesn’t agree with any of the messaging, but still bought Swasticoin—as well as another Nazi-themed coin, Yaydolf—as he saw potential for it to rise in price. While he struggles with the toxicity of the scene, he believes that as a meme coin trader you must be willing to buy and sell without personal bias.

It’s a perspective that the advocacy group Campaign Against Antisemitism struggles to square.

“I don't see how one can take a look at a meme coin of a swastika and say: ‘Well, I don't endorse this message, but I'm going to put my money into it,’” spokesperson Elie K. told Decrypt. “By putting your money into it, you are endorsing the message.”

What is Ye’s goal?

But other traders think there’s merit to the message behind Swasticoin, the meme coin that Ye shared, as well as the acclaimed rapper’s broader meme coin tirade. 

“I understand his artistic vision behind it, which is that he wants to be different from the crowd,” pseudonymous trader Hoodrich told Decrypt. “He’s trying to make everything a bit more lighthearted. If people keep looking at a symbol in a negative way, it will always remain that  way—while the original [swastika] comes from peace.”

It is true that the swastika pre-dates the Nazi movement. However, there are key visual differences to the version that came to define the German fascist ideology, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews and other opponents during World War II.

For example, both the Buddhist and Hindu versions of the symbol lay flat while the Nazi symbol is angled 45 degrees. Plus, both Buddhism and Hinduism feature additional design elements such as dotted quadrants, brighter choices of color, and intricate patterns. There’s also vastly different symbolism and meaning behind each version.

Hoodrich thinks it's unfair that parts of the world that follow these religions don’t have negative connotations with the symbol, while the West does, although he rejects there being any notable differences between the symbols.

This type of justification doesn’t fly with scholars that study and aim to counter hate groups.

“Kanye isn’t destigmatizing the symbol; he’s spreading it and that is shameful,” Dr. Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Decrypt. “Given all his other antisemitism, referring to the symbol’s pre-Nazi past sounds like BS.”

With each purchase, shill on X, and message in Telegram, the Swasticoin’s message grows. It appears the overton window, which references the spectrum of politically acceptable subjects, has shifted so far that Nazi ideology has seeped into crypto conversations.

“Just for the record. Hitler wasn't a bad guy,” one pseudonymous X user said in response to an influencer who chastised meme coin traders for buying the token. The same user went on to call the Holocaust a “fake event” and posted a translated Hitler speech. 

And there are many other examples of other likewise anonymous users posting similarly hateful messages in support of the meme coin.

The team behind another Ye-themed coin called Yeezy Coin (YzY), referred to as “4NBT” in reference to the token’s contract address, claims that its community is less interested in ties to antisemitism and Nazism.

“4NBT doesn’t appear to fixate on that angle as much,” Aeri, a pseudonymous community member and Discord admin, told Decrypt. “[Our] community—at least from what I've witnessed this past month—seems more focused on the coin’s supposed authenticity as Ye's true project.”

Despite Ye reposting Swasticoin, the 4NBT community believes its token is set to soon be announced as the rapper's official project. That’s because the token deployer, called JewMoney, has a history of predicting—or as the community puts it, “prophesizing”—moves that Ye is about to make. But most of the evidence is tenuous. 

The same deployer launched three other tokens on Pump.fun, including one called “Greedy Jews Only,” which trades under the GREED ticker.

One of the many running theories is that 4NBT is part of a so-called alternate reality game or performance art piece that is meant as a criticism against “those that control the media” or otherwise filled with greed and a lust to control the world’s wealth—tropes that have been used to justify discrimination and violence against Jewish people throughout history. Those devoted to the lore say this is why Ye is making it so mysterious and hard to figure out which token is his.

4NBT fans claim that this theory is backed up by posts made by X user TrillionBear, which they believe is connected to Ye in some way and has been shilling the token, as well as posts made by Ye himself. As such, the community eagerly awaits any post by TrillionBear or Ye, hoping for the confirmation they so desperately seek.

Another theory builds on this by claiming that Swasticoin is part of this same broader project, as it looks to bait those people filled with greed into buying it before 4NBT is revealed as the real token—in a false prophet twist. This theory is supposedly backed up by Ansem calling Swasticoin a “fake” Ye coin on Friday.

“I believe both [coins were created by Ye], but Swasticoin is meant to lure in 'Jews' aka typical crypto traders,” pseudonymous 4NBT investor Thomas told Decrypt. “Whereas 4NBT is meant to be a fair community coin, giving opportunities to not just the vultures and Jews of crypto.”

At this point, subtlety has gone out of the window.

“I think Swasticoin is equivalent to the gas chamber—you know, like people [will] get wrecked,” another pseudonymous 4NBT community member Barre Beck said on a public X Spaces.

It’s “just a joke”

Almost everyone in support of these tokens is cloaked in online anonymity. This isn’t abnormal in the crypto industry, especially amid an apparent rise in crypto-related robberies.

Thomas, the 4NBT token holder, told Decrypt that he'd feel less inclined to engage and promote the tokens if his account was more directly connected to him, adding that he doesn’t share similar content on his personal, doxxed accounts.

That said, pseudonymous traders and Swasticoin bulls Taco_eth and Hoodrich claimed that they have been shilling the token to their real-life friends. Hoodrich added that some of his friends are Jewish and don’t care about the token’s meaning, noting that everyone has made profit.

Thomas explained that he thinks Ye’s recent rants about Jewish people aren’t aimed at those that are ethnically Jewish, but rather people with particular traits—posting a similar thought publicly. When asked to name those “Jewish” traits that Ye is purportedly railing against, he listed greed, “rattiness,” deceit, and a lack of empathy. 

But while some traders may aim to deflect the notion of antisemitism or hide behind pseudonyms, experts say that such rhetoric can have real consequences.

“Parroting these tropes perpetuates very real harm against Jews across the world today,” Elie K. said. “Kanye’s words have a very real effect, and so do anyone else's [words that] are spreading antisemitic tropes. Words online don't just stay online. They find their way into the real world.”

When Decrypt asked if Thomas is antisemitic, he said “not really” and that he is “unfamiliar” with Jewish people, but that has heard these stereotypes and knows many people believe them. He justifies his involvement as just a way to “make money.”

Thomas estimates that approximately half of the members of the Swasticoin and 4NBT communities are “racists” or “edgelords.” And the rest, like him, are just there to make money. He added that the 4NBT Telegram was particularly grim, but said that some people may be pretending to be antisemitic or racist “just for fun,” as a way to hype the token.

“I think a lot gets dismissed as just being a joke,” Elie K. explained. “You, as an individual, might in your heart not hate Jews, but you don’t know how the other person in the chat feels… that might start affecting someone else and they might start thinking, actually, this meme has a point.”

Decrypt found messages in the 4NBT Telegram calling for the murder of Jewish and Black people, as well as a moderator asking people to send pictures of their noses to “prove” they aren’t Jewish. It is worth noting that Swasticoin doesn’t have a Discord or Telegram.

“The modern day far-right will spread their ideology through memes, because they're very digestible,” Elie K. told Decrypt. “When you impart your very real attitudes that you don't like Jews into these digestible memes, then people are going to keep consuming this—and what might start as a joke becomes propaganda.”

Dr. Beirich further called memes a “powerful tool for radicalization,” and pointed to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue that explains that memes give far-right ideologies a new look that makes them more attractive in the digital age. In doing this, the culture’s overton window begins to shift to the point that fringe beliefs drift closer to normalcy.

“The innocuousness of jokes can be leveraged to lure people in, and then, once they are in contact, the joking stops and the radicalization begins," Dr. Beirich explained. “That’s why you can’t take these kinds of jokes lightly—they can lead people down rabbit holes that land them in the arms of far-right extremists.”