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Digital currency Coinye launches despite legal threat from physical rapper Kanye
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 9 January 2014
A new rival to digital currency Bitcoin, calling itself Coinye, in tribute to Kanye West, launched this week, despite a cease and desist letter from the rapper’s lawyers. In fact, the letter brought the new currency’s launch forward.
According to the Wall Street Journal, lawyer Brad Rose said in his legal threat: “Given Mr West’s wide-ranging entrepreneurial accomplishments, consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Mr West is the source of your services”.
Meanwhile, in a statement, the people behind Coinye said that they were “being attacked with fishsticks and must launch sooner” than their original 11 Jan start date. In an interview with WSJ, one of the creators explained that the decentralised nature of the currency meant that once it was in the public domain, there was nothing that could be done to stop it propagating.
“We want to release this to the public before ‘the man’ can try to crush it”, they said. “They’ll still come after us, but that’s OK”.
You can find out more about Coinye here. And while you might think it silly now, pray heed the lesson of Lily Allen.