Kanye West wants to make money. He doesn’t want to BE money. The superstar rapper and wealthy music mogul filed a trademark infringement lawsuit Tuesday against the creators of a humorous new Kanye West-themed digital currency called “COINYE” that launched last week. The logo for the currency, which is bought and sold over the Internet, features a cartoon version of West wearing his signature “shutter shades”.
The rapper Kanye West, leaving no stone unturned, has included Amazon.com—and more than 50 others—in a new lawsuit intended to shut down some digital currencies that have sprung up bearing some variation of his name. The lawsuit follows the creation of “Coinye,” a digital currency that was inspired by West and was invented to provide an alternative to Bitcoin, another digital currency that some would say is more established. Coinye was developed to provide a more consumer-friendly version of Bitcoin, though it never really took off once West got wind of it.
