
Turns out Kanye West wasn’t flattered by a group of coders naming a new cryptocurrency after him.
Instead, he’s filing a cease-and-desist against them.
Lawyers for the rapper have filed cease-and-desist papers against the seven coders who created Coinye West, a new currency following in the footsteps (and pawprints) of Bitcoin, Dogecoin and more, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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West’s lawyers are claiming trademark infringement on the currency, which includes a picture of Yeezus’s face on its surface in addition to its name being a play off his.
“Given Mr. West’s wide-ranging entrepreneurial accomplishments, consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Mr. West is the source of your services,” a lawyer for West wrote in the cease-and-desist.
Despite the order, the creators of the currency aren’t backing down completely. They’ve changed the name from Coinye West to simply Coinye and changed website domains from a .com address to .in (based in India), but actually going ahead with the launch of the cryptocurrency today (Jan. 7) — two days early.
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“We want to release this to the public before the man can try to crush it,” a coder told the paper Monday night. “They’ll still come after us, but that’s OK.”
Coinye will become available at 10 p.m. ET, barring any last-minute blocks from the rapper’s camp.