The creators of Coinye West have moved up the release date of their Yeezus-inspired cryptocurrency after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the product’s namesake. While the Kanye-honoring Internet money (à la Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, Peercoin, and Dogecoin) was originally set to go live on January 11, it’ll now arrive today, January 7, at 7 p.m. PST. The Coinye Facebook account has been taken down, but the Twitter profile lives on:
“WHO GON STOP ME HUH” ? Coinye feelin’ the heat, gonna spread what we got so far before the bigwigs steal our work!! https://t.co/Aql5N1tNp5
— Coinye (@CoinyeCoins) January 7, 2014
You’ll note the original square-jawed face of Coinye has been replaced with South Park‘s West-as-gay-fish. Quoted previously, the currency’s seven anonymous makers came across as fans: “We chose to represent Kanye because he is and always has been a trendsetter, and he’s always keeping things unique.” But according to Wall Street Journal, his lawyer Brad Rose has given them reason to change their tune (perhaps to one about hobbits).
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“Given Mr. West’s wide-ranging entrepreneurial accomplishments, consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Mr. West is the source of your services.” Rose also promised that in the event of an unauthorized Coinye roll-out, his firm would “notify the cryptocurrency community at large of your infringing actions and pursue all legal remedies against any business that accepts the purported COINYE WEST currency.”
As a result, in addition to the expedited release, the cryptocurrency’s developers dropped the “West” from their creation’s name, shut down the old homepage, and founded a brand new site with an Indian domain.