Andrew Tate, a public figure known for his online influence and past involvement in cryptocurrencies, has taken a short position against Kanye West’s newly launched YZY token. A wallet address tied to Tate opened a 3x leveraged short at a price of $0.85 on the decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid.
Despite the YZY token initially spiking in value—jumping 1,400% in under an hour—the price has since dropped sharply, falling more than 74%. While Tate’s short position is currently showing a $16,000 gain, this trade does little to improve his overall record on the platform.
Tate’s performance on Hyperliquid shows a clear pattern of losses. Based on data shared by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain, Tate has made 80 trades on the platform. Only 29 of those trades were profitable, giving him a win rate of just over 36%.
His total losses on the platform are now close to $699,000. Lookonchain noted,
“Tate doesn’t seem to be good at perps trading.”
The ongoing losses have drawn attention from the trading community, especially given Tate’s public stance on financial success and investing.
YZY Token Plummets After Early Surge
The YZY token, launched on Solana and tied to Kanye West’s brand, saw a quick rise in value before a steep drop. At its peak, the token reached a $3 billion market cap within 40 minutes of launch. It has since fallen to around $100 million, based on current CoinGecko data.
Most of the token’s supply was in the hands of a few wallets. One multisig wallet held 87% before general trading began. Another wallet spent roughly $450,000 to acquire tokens early, selling later for $1.39 million while still holding $600,000 worth.
A second major holder used over 12,000 SOL (worth $2.28 million) to buy tokens and is now sitting on an unrealized gain of about $6 million. This concentration of supply has raised concerns about early access and dumping by insiders.
Past Token Promotions Raise Concerns
This is not the first time Tate has been linked to questionable token activity. In mid-2024, he promoted several Solana-based meme coins including Daddy Tate (DADDY), Roost (ROOST), and TopG (TOPG). Most of these tokens saw sharp price drops soon after launch.
The DADDY token once reached a peak market cap of $124 million but has since fallen to below $18 million. On-chain activity later showed a group of wallets bought a large share of the supply just before promotion began.
Tate’s involvement in multiple failed token launches and ongoing trading losses continues to draw attention. His recent short against YZY may have turned a small profit, but his broader crypto trading history remains under pressure.
