SCENE&#039, s 2024 Person of the Year: Iggy Azalea

Four-time Grammy-nominated actor Iggy Azalea entered the blockchain scene this year with her personal joke coin, MOTHER. But unlike many of her brand rivals, the job wasn’t a fast cash get. In reality, she’s redefining what it means to be a star in crypto—and is paving the way for another.

Certainly that’s it’s been a easy drive for the American singer. Her bitcoin journey has been plagued by some of the worst bitcoin has to offer, including play, red lights, personal stress, and copius sniping from moralizing industry watchers.

However, Azalea’s Solana joke coin MOTHER has grown to be the gold standard for superstar tokens, with the musician still attempting to raise the value of the key by promoting herself and taking an active interest in developing the project and its platform. A stunning example of how to use popularity to build more than plunder is the artist’s defiance and resolve to fight through the difficult times, during significant price pullbacks.

For these reasons, and as one of crypto’s most noticeable social images during the past year, Azalea is SCENE’s 2024 Person of the Year.

I find retribution to be very motivating.

Azalea’s walk into bitcoin started while smoking cannabis on the balcony with her bitcoin degen nephew, in May, she told . During a series of high-minded meetings, the Aussie singer began to learn the basics of bitcoin, which drove her curiousity about the business.

Shortly after realizing how a celebrity meme coin was operate, she approached her manager to inquire whether it was legal and practically possible for her to release a meme coin. &nbsp,

It was of program, and she did—but Azalea’s first venture into the room immediately created play.

The not-so-merry quarter of May

To make for a token start and getting a better knowledge of best practices, Azalea’s director connected with Sahil Arora—a superstar coin promoter whose credibility, it afterward turned out, has been questioned by some, including media personality and short-lived collaborator Caitlyn Jenner. &nbsp,

Arora and Azalea’s group had a brief discussion about what a possible collaboration was seem like—pay, post requirements, complex details, and so on. According to emails Arora forwarded to , it appears that Azalea’s manager was unsure about the joint venture. But eventually, Arora claims, the team came around to the idea and he sent$ 40, 000 via wire transfer. ( did not see any evidence of payment. )

Oh man, I’m going to have to bend you and fuck the hell out of you right away.

Arora also began using his private Telegram group to solicit donations for what was then thought to be the soon-to-be-launched IGGY token. Insiders paid him$ 380, 000 in&nbsp, in the pre-sale. Arora continued to deny Azalea’s claim that his IGGY token was the real deal in a string of now deleted tweets after she learned of this unapproved token using her brand on Twitter.

“I find retribution to be very motivating.,” Azalea explained. “When he kept going on about it, being like: ‘This is real and she’s joking’… I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to have to bend you and fuck the hell out of you right away..’”

So Azalea used Launchpad Pump to launch her own Solana meme coin, MOTHER. fun a matter of hours later. In less than two weeks, it reached its highest ever-acquired market cap of any celebrity-created token, surpassing$ 260 million. &nbsp,

It also doomed IGGY, &nbsp, which launched and promptly fell to virtually nothing. Now six months later, IGGY pre-sale participants still haven’t received any tokens or a refund, which Arora said was due to the dust 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 relevant and she’s with it”, Alon, the pseudonymous co-founder of meme coin launchpad Pump. fun, told , explaining how Azalea’s knowledge of crypto was impressive. Beyond Crypto Twitter, it made us so bullish. We were aware that there was something here for everyone. We absolutely loved that”.

Mother’s Day

However, everything must go up.

MOTHER crashed 82 % during the coming month. As more celebrities abandoned their meme coins, the wider market had cooled, and the celebrity meta was beginning to fade. Azalea’s token traded mostly sideways for two more months. &nbsp,

” It felt like I was fucking falling out of a plane with no parachute”, Azalea told . ” It was a rude awakening, to be honest with you”.

Fears that this was just another celebrity token that faded into obscurity started to permeate the air. Azalea stayed active unlike celebs of the past. She claimed to log onto Telegram every day to facilitate group interaction on the token.

” I was having to manage people’s emotions in the chat”, Azalea said. She aimed to persuade MOTHER holders to “keep confidence in something new to people, with no proven track record, and to build that confidence quickly in those difficult circumstances.”

It was a tricky environment. The typical course for celebrity meme coins was to have the person jump ship as soon as the waters became choppy. Jenner’s coins were a fresh example. In May, the former Olympian had also released two meme coins, which were abandoned as soon as the opposition erupted and she stopped selling the tokens.

However, Azalea vowed that MOTHER would not choose that path. No stranger to fear, uncertainty, and doubt—these were her companions throughout her music career—she said she decided to do what she always does: Gut it out and fight through it. &nbsp,

She told ,” It’s an addiction to some kind of chemical in my brain that I think I’ve been addicted to for a long time, probably because I’m a performer and I’ve retired from that portion of my life.“

” You get a lot of adrenaline and dopamine when you’re onstage”, she added. There’s also a certain kind of strange stress or anxiety that manifests in the absence of any knowledge. And that part of it, in a fucked-up way, is as addictive as the dopamine reward part”.

So Azalea hung in there. She still manages the Telegram conversation and regularly checks the market, something she claimed she still does today. She claimed that on days when the token drops, she experienced a great deal of anxiety in her stomach, similar to what she experienced during her musical career as she waited for an album release, a Grammy nomination, or to attend a big performance backstage. &nbsp,

That’s a big part of why she’s stuck it out in crypto, she said:” I really need it. It contributes to my morning’s energy and vigor. I like that in a fucked-up way”.

But beyond the psychological and emotional rewards, unlike most other celebrities who issue meme tokens for the quick bucks, Azalea had an actual plan to promote her coin—and, maybe, just maybe, turn it into something bigger. Her goal was to take MOTHER to the top of the meme coin market and make it a top-notch token along with Pepe. &nbsp,

To that end, she began to execute her plan at Token 2049, Asia’s biggest crypto conference, in October. There, she threw the mother of all parties—The Motherland Rodeo Party. Azalea hired 36 women to dance onstage and with attendees, in a venue adorned with a cowboy motif—a western-style saloon, bales of hay, and more. Her celebrity appeal brought in the influencer crowd, of course, and as the night raged on, tons of clips went viral—including Three Arrows Capital CEO, Su Zhu, making it rain dollar bills over a dancer.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Azalea without drama: At one point, the organizers of Solana Breakpoint—another conference happening in Singapore at the same time—apparently warned her not to twerk alongside dancers during her scheduled talk because it “would go too viral“. And there was some backlash from different crypto-related sectors, with those who weren’t present referring to it as” crazy” and “goofy.”

Azalea handled it all with a shrug. ” Crypto WILL have ass”, she tweeted, to the delight of her followers.

The trick was to put the ass in crypto: MOTHER pumped more than 157 % during the ten days following her party.

She partially attributed the success to the disorder that celebrities in the United States bring to the industry, and she intends to double down. She intends to use the Rodeo Party as a model for three additional themed events every year as they move forward.

” I want to bring the chaos to the pop culture of crypto”, Azalea explained.

But her vision for MOTHER didn’t stop there. On December 20, the MOTHER project” soft launched” an online casino called Motherland, which plans to feature livestreams of models and other celebrities, with whom punters can gamble MOTHER tokens in real time.

The musician thinks that this will be a platform that will change how famous people use crypto. Celebrities can sign a streaming agreement with Motherland to engage with the culture rather than wasting their time making tokens that they will throw away in a few weeks. &nbsp,

Of course, execution is everything—especially in crypto. However, Azalea has so far shown a willingness to learn quickly and hard, and she appears to be just as addicted to memes as the most experienced degens, while also bringing the celebrity luster to crypto. &nbsp,

She wants to change the way the wealthy and famous interact with the world through events and is bringing fun to it. This isn’t just a cash grab, it’s a passionate addiction—similar to her music career. &nbsp,

” I do not want to leave the space. I want to be a first-mover in every way, shape, or form”, she said, adding. ” I want to be a crypto legend”! She appears to be moving well.