SCENE's 2024 Individual of the 12 months: Iggy Azalea – Decrypt

4-time Grammy-nominated artist Iggy Azalea entered the crypto scene this yr together with her personal meme coin, MOTHER. However not like lots of her celeb counterparts, the undertaking wasn’t a fast money seize. The truth is, she’s redefining what it means to be a star in crypto—and is paving the way in which for others.

Not that is it has been a easy trip for the Australian rapper. Her crypto journey has been suffering from among the worst crypto has to supply, together with drama, crimson candles, private anxiousness, and copius sniping from moralizing trade observers.

But Azalea’s Solana meme coin MOTHER has turn out to be the gold commonplace for celeb tokens with the musician persevering with to attempt to improve the worth of the token by growing her presence and taking a private curiosity in constructing out the undertaking and its platform. The artist’s defiance and drive to combat by means of the powerful instances, throughout main value pull backs, is a primary within the new world of celeb meme cash—a shimmering instance in crypto of how you can use fame to construct, slightly than plunder.

For these causes, and as certainly one of crypto’s most seen cultural icons in the course of the previous yr, Azalea is SCENE’s 2024 Individual of the 12 months.

Azalea’s enterprise into crypto began whereas smoking weed on the porch together with her crypto degen brother, in Could, she informed Decrypt. Throughout a collection of high-minded conversations, the Aussie musician started to be taught the fundamentals of crypto, which drove her curiousity in regards to the trade.

Quickly she noticed a imaginative and prescient of how a star meme coin may work, and requested her supervisor if it was potential for her to launch a meme coin—each virtually and legally. 

It was in fact, and she or he did—however Azalea’s first foray into the area rapidly created drama.

The not-so-merry month of Could

To arrange for a token launch and get a greater understanding of finest practices, Azalea’s supervisor linked with Sahil Arora—a star coin promoter whose credibility, it later turned out, has been questioned by some, together with media persona and short-lived collaborator Caitlyn Jenner. 

Arora and Azalea’s staff had a quick dialogue about what a possible collaboration may seem like—pay, tweet necessities, technical particulars, and so forth. In keeping with emails Arora forwarded to Decrypt, it seems that Azalea’s supervisor was uncertain in regards to the three way partnership. However ultimately, Arora claims, the staff got here round to the concept and he despatched $40,000 by way of wire switch. (Decrypt didn’t see any proof of cost and and Azalea’s staff denies receiving any funds.)

Arora additionally began taking cash by way of his personal Telegram group for what was then described as a soon-to-launch IGGY token. Insiders paid him $380,000 in within the pre-sale. When Azalea caught wind of this unapproved token utilizing her model, she took to Twitter to publicly slam Arora in a collection of now deleted tweets; Arora continued to say that his IGGY token was the actual deal, which additional incensed her.

“One thing like revenge motivates me drastically,” Azalea defined. “When he stored occurring about it, being like: ‘That is actual and she or he’s joking’… I used to be like, ‘Oh man, I will need to bend you over and fuck the shit out of you now.’”

So Azalea launched her personal Solana meme coin known as MOTHER by way of launchpad Pump.enjoyable a matter of hours later. It skyrocketed to a market cap simply shy of $260 million in lower than two weeks—the very best any celeb created token has climbed. 

It additionally doomed IGGY, which launched and promptly fell to just about nothing. Now six months later, IGGY pre-sale members nonetheless haven’t acquired any tokens or a refund, which Arora stated was as a result of mud up and the MOTHER token surpassing his coin: “It was too late, she already flipped us and shit […] so [it] didn’t make sense.”

“She’s so culturally related and she or he’s with it,” Alon, the pseudonymous co-founder of meme coin launchpad Pump.enjoyable, informed Decrypt, explaining how Azalea’s information of crypto was spectacular. “It made us so bullish past Crypto Twitter. We knew there was one thing right here for the plenty. We completely cherished that.”

Mom’s Day

However every thing that goes up should go down.

MOTHER crashed 82% in the course of the coming month. The broader market had cooled and the celeb meta was beginning to die as extra celebs deserted their meme cash. Azalea’s token traded principally sideways for 2 extra months. 

“It felt like I used to be fucking falling out of a aircraft with no parachute,” Azalea informed Decrypt. “It was a impolite awakening, to be trustworthy with you.”

Fears that this was simply one other celeb token that light into obscurity began to bubble to the floor. Not like celebs of the previous Azalea stayed lively. She stated she logged onto Telegram each day to calm individuals down within the token’s official group chat.

“I used to be having to handle individuals’s feelings within the chat,” Azalea stated. She wished to persuade MOTHER holders to “maintain confidence in one thing that is new to individuals, that does not have a confirmed observe file, and to determine that confidence rapidly in these uneven circumstances.”

It was a difficult surroundings. The conventional trajectory for celeb meme cash was for the celeb to leap ship as quickly because the waters received uneven. Jenner’s cash had been a recent instance. The previous Olympian had additionally launched two meme cash in Could that fell into oblivion as soon as the neighborhood began to show in opposition to her and she or he stopped shilling the tokens.

However Azalea vowed that MOTHER wasn’t going to comply with that path. No stranger to worry, uncertainty, and doubt—these had been her companions all through her music profession—she stated she determined to do what she all the time does: Intestine it out and combat by means of it. 

“It is an dependancy to some sort of chemical in my mind that I feel I have been hooked on for a very long time—in all probability as a result of I’m a performer and I’ve retired from that a part of my life,” she informed Decrypt.

“You get plenty of adrenaline and dopamine while you’re onstage,” she added. “There’s additionally this type of bizarre stress or anxiousness that comes within the moments of not understanding. And that a part of it, in a fucked-up manner, is as addictive because the dopamine reward half.”

So Azalea hung in there. She checked the market on daily basis and she or he micromanaged the Telegram chat, one thing she stated she nonetheless does to this present day. On days when the token drops she stated she feels a deep anxiousness in her abdomen—the identical feeling she received throughout her music profession as she awaited an album launch, a Grammy nomination, or ready backstage earlier than an enormous present. 

That’s an enormous a part of why she’s caught it out in crypto, she stated: “I really want it. It’s a part of what retains me waking up and pleased within the morning. I like that in a fucked-up manner.”

However past the psychological and emotional rewards, not like most different celebrities who subject meme tokens for the fast bucks, Azalea had an precise plan to advertise her coin—and, perhaps, simply perhaps, flip it into one thing larger. Her purpose was to push MOTHER to the highest of the meme coin market, and switch it right into a blue-chip token alongside the likes of Pepe. 

To that finish, she started to execute her plan at Token 2049, Asia’s greatest crypto convention, in October. There, she threw the mom of all events—The Motherland Rodeo Celebration. Azalea employed 36 girls to bop onstage and with attendees, in a venue adorned with a cowboy motif—a western-style saloon, bales of hay, and extra. Her celeb enchantment introduced within the influencer crowd, in fact, and because the night time raged on, tons of clips went viral—together with Three Arrows Capital CEO, Su Zhu, making it rain greenback payments over a dancer.

After all, it wouldn’t be Azalea with out drama: At one level, the organizers of Solana Breakpoint—one other convention occurring in Singapore on the similar time—apparently warned her to not twerk alongside dancers throughout her scheduled speak as a result of it “would go too viral.” And there was some pushback from numerous corners of the crypto trade—with these not in attendance calling it “cringe” and “goofy.”

Azalea shrugged all of it off. “Crypto WILL have ass,” she tweeted, to the delight of her followers.

Placing the ass in crypto did the trick: Throughout the ten days following her occasion, MOTHER pumped greater than 157%.

She partly attributed the success to the sort of chaos that stars deliver to celeb life within the U.S—and she or he intends to double down. She intends to make use of the Rodeo Celebration as a template for 3 extra themed occasions yearly shifting ahead.

“I need to deliver the chaos to the popular culture of crypto,” Azalea defined.

However her imaginative and prescient for MOTHER didn’t cease there. On December 20, the MOTHER undertaking “delicate launched” an internet on line casino known as Motherland, which plans to characteristic livestreams of fashions and different celebrities, with whom punters can gamble MOTHER tokens in actual time.

The musician believes this might be a platform that may revolutionize how celebrities have interaction with crypto. As an alternative of clueless celebrities creating tokens that they dump inside just a few weeks, they will signal a streaming take care of Motherland to interact with the tradition. 

After all, execution is every thing—particularly in crypto. However to this point, Azalea appears to be studying arduous and quick, and seems to be as hooked on the world of meme cash as essentially the most veteran of degens, whereas bringing the luster of celeb to crypto. 

She’s bringing enjoyable to the tradition by means of occasions and is ready on altering the way in which that the wealthy and well-known enter the scene. This isn’t only a money seize, it’s a passionate dependancy—much like her music profession. 

“I don’t need to go away the area. I need to be a first-mover in each manner, form, or kind,” she stated, including. “I need to be a crypto legend!” She seems to be properly on her manner.