- The crypto world is buying up new emoji-identifiers called Yats.
- Creator Yat Labs has raked in $20 million since launching last year, the Wall Street Journal said.
- The most expensive Yats are single and double emojis, with the priciest one — a golden key — selling for $425,000.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
A new trend has hit the crypto world: emoji-identifiers called Yats.
Yats, a string of emojis that operate as a person's unique URL and payment address, have garnered attention from celebrities like NFT-enthusiast Paris Hilton as well as rappers G-Eazy and Lil Wayne, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Yat Labs, the creator of this new trend, has raked in $20 million from sales of about 160,000 Yats in the last year, the report said.
"Yat lets you use emojis as your universal username and identity on the internet," the company wrote in its Discord server. "Imagine being known as fire-snake or robot-ghost-crown instead of coffeequeen98 or [email protected]. By owning a Yat — let's say ocean-trident-palm tree — it's yours forever. You are the ~only~ one on earth who owns these emojis."
G-Eazy's Yat, for example, is a batman and a rose, as a sign that he's a "creature of the night who's a hopeless romantic," the Journal wrote, quoting the rapper. The batman-rose is now linked in his Twitter bio. Once clicked, the browser opens his webpage.
"I think it speaks to my identity as G-Eazy," he told the Journal. The Yat, he said, is "a place to find me and a way to associate with me and my brand."
The most expensive Yats, according to the company, are single and double emojis, with the priciest one — a golden key — selling for $425,000. Other expensive Yats include a rocketship-moon combo — a popular reference among crypto and meme-stock enthusiasts — that sold for $200,000.
Down the road, the company said on its site that it wants Yats to be issued as NFTs, which are digital collectibles minted on the blockchain. According to the Journal, people can make their Yat an NFT on their own, but for a fee from a blockchain network like ethereum.
