How Successful Can a Crypto Be if It’s Launched By a Pop Star?

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Game of Life

6 min readJun 24, 2021

Do you think only geeks and developers can launch their cryptocurrencies? Far from the truth! There are pop stars of local and global scale that have created their own crypto projects. Some of these coins live and prosper, while others have been abandoned. Several pop stars-inspired cryptocurrencies have been created without any real connection with the character but further drew their attention… in lawsuits. Let’s see who these pop stars are and how successful their enterprises are.

Akon Crypto Cities powered by Akoin: “I come with the concept and let the geeks figure it out”

There’s this Senegalese-American artist Akon who you probably know by the songs “Smack that” and “Lonely”. RnB, however, is not his only passion — as a philanthropist, Akon strives to improve the quality of life in Africa. Akon Crypto City is his central idea.

In the sultry savanna, not far from the Senegal capital Dakar, the president of the republic has granted the artist 2,000 acres of land for erecting a smart city. This habitat will have a “climate consciousness”, and its economy will be built right from the citizens’ apps — everything here will be paid by the cryptocurrency Akoin. The artist calls this a “real-life Wakanda”, and on the pictures, this looks not far from the truth:

The primary goals that Akon City and Akoin address are economic instability and the negative appeal of Africa for young promising citizens. “I think that blockchain and crypto could be the saviour for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people”, Akon says.

Due to the local currencies’ volatility, high inflation rates, and banks’ inaccessibility, young people who want to make some change just can’t do it. Having gathered all city services in one place, Akon will create an attractive living space, so the citizens will be able to “earn, save and spend cryptocurrency while providing an opportunity for entrepreneurs and brands”.

It’s awesome when enthusiasts have enough resources to implement their ideas without any knowledge on the tech side of the subject. “I come with the concepts and let the geeks figure it out”, Akon says. His enthusiasm has already reached a Pan-African level — in 2021, it was announced that another Akon smart city will be built in Uganda.

It’s a pleasure to look up the news and see that the project is still alive. This is not about the next crypto project, though.

The story of Coinye West, which first became just Coinye, and then just disappeared

Coinye West was created with no purpose. And it wasn’t even Kanye who inspired it — just a few geeks who wanted no more than to have some fun.

Sadly, this was a joke that wasn’t meant to live long: it went through all stages from a ‘garage’ crypto startup to an internet sensation in just one week. We would wish everyone to grow as fast as this if only we didn’t know what it ended up with.

In January 2017, the crypto world was shaken by the introduction of a new coin with “no premine, no screwed up fake “fair” launches, shyster devs, muted channels, and f**ked up wallets”. Sounds like a cool investment project, huh? That was the Coinye West cryptocurrency concocted by 7 anonymous developers. Unluckily, Kanye learned about the coin too fast and didn’t want to invest. His lawyers filed an order to suspend the project.

But the devs didn’t surrender that fast. They removed the word ‘West’ from the coin’s name and changed the logo from this

into this:

and asked Kanye what he thinks about their investment opportunity:

In the end, Dogecoin was also made overnight with the sole purpose of having fun and then took its place in the Top-10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. But, as experience has shown, the declaration of humans’ eternal love for cute animals and capitalizing on someone’s identity without their consent are two things a little different. Kanye filed another lawsuit with the demand to sell all Coinyes and leave the project, which the devs ultimately did. “Coinye is dead. You win, Kanye”, their website said instead of goodbye.

Buzcoin — how to create a unique ecosystem of nothing

Olga Buzova is a Russian pop star and socialite who has more Instagram followers than Paris Hilton as of June 2021. She seems to be a singer, however, many Russians know her just for her activity on social media, including all kinds of scandals. In April 2018, she announced the creation of Buzcoin.

According to the pop star, this project “was unparalleled in the entire world”, and she founded it after the termination of disappointing relationships. Buzova was committed to bringing this venture to the international level. “I’m building an empire”, she said.

This empire was supposed to be built around the Buzar — the shopping and entertainment platform which integrated a number of services from dating to clothing stores. Everything in this ecosystem would have been paid for with Buzcoin. However, the ICO didn’t go well, and soon it became clear that the platform focuses on too many things. Olga Buzova quit the project — probably, got disappointed in cryptocurrency this time. By the way, she met her new husband very soon after.

But as in Coinye’s story, the team decided not to stop. Buzcoin’s main dev met the founder of a Russia-based club “The World of an Ideal Woman”, and they managed to raise an astonishing €210 million from investors. The new project would include another ecosystem, this time designed specifically for women: there would be a social network, a dating service (again!), an online radio… Guess what, the project’s founders were again terrifically persuasive in their permissions to go nationwide. They are taking quite a long walk, though — by June 2021, there hasn’t been any news so far again…

Why is crypto launched by pop stars better than just funny?

While in the USA and other developed countries up to 15% of the population uses cryptocurrency, and in some, digital coins are even legal tender, in other countries, crypto is treated with caution, especially by the governments. Akon and Olga Buzova provoked the rise of crypto popularity in developing countries — and even though sometimes their projects are treated with skepticism, many people will at least google what Bitcoin is. You have to admit, this is really not bad.

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