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Earlier this year, Kanye West told his millions of Instagram followers that he was not trying to get into non-fungible tokens. Four months later, the rapper-producer may be reconsidering his options in the NFT space and other digital avenues.
On Wednesday, June 1, trademark attorney Josh Gerben pointed out that Ye's company, Mascotte Holdings, Inc. submitted numerous U.S. federal trademark filings on May 27 for his Yeezus alias. In total, Mascotte filed for 17 trademarks that are intended for the debut of Yeezus-branded amusement parks, NFT's and blockchain-based currencies, clothing and bags and other manufactured goods. The difference in the company's recent filing is the line about "entertainment services, namely, metaverse experiences."
The inclusion of NFTs, blockchain-based currencies and the metaverse experiences could honestly mean several things. It could mean that Ye is simply trademarking the digital avenues before anyone else can. There's also the possibility that he's rethinking his approach to NFTs and the metaverse altogether. Back in February, Ye made it pretty clear that he was not interested in creating any non-fungible tokens.
"My focus is on building real products in the real world, real food, real clothes, real shelter," Ye wrote in a photo that he posted to Instagram (and later deleted). "Do not ask me to do a f**king NFT."
This isn't the first time Ye's company has made these type of filings, and it probably won't be the last. Ye had fans talking when he made a similar batch of filings for the Yeezus brand back in 2018. His company also made several filings earlier this year.