"We takin' shots at Bitcoin." This is the tagline of the latest cryptocurrency to hit the Web. It might sound bold, but it has to be—it's trying to emulate a pretty bold character, after whom it has entirely modeled its image.

CoinYe West is a modern day love letter to musician Kanye West. Its creators are in the process of fashioning a currency dedicated to the man himself, and have chosen to stamp his likeness on it and to advertise it with a website featuring his "BLKKK SKKKN HEAD" video in the background. If this is not a new slight of genius self-promotion from the oft misguided West, it's certainly a takedown notice in the making.

Choosing a popular culture figure to represent a decentralised, anonymous, and unregulated currency might seem an odd choice, but it had already been done before with Dogecoin, a nod to the Doge meme. Coinye West's creators, who spoke to Noisey in an e-mail interview (because they "want to stay sorta anonymous in case Kanye gets pissed off"), believe that West is in fact the perfect choice. By using a pop culture icon to launch a currency, they are hoping to bring cryptocurrencies to the masses. "Bitcoin is for hardcore money-hoarders, and Dogecoin was more for the Internet-meme crowds," they said.

This is why the release is so public, with the countdown to the 11 January launch (when free giveaways will take place) being ticked down on its website. "No premine, no screwed up fake 'fair' launches, shyster devs, muted channels, and f**ked up wallets," write the founders on the site. "We will be releasing password protected, encrypted archives containing the binaries and source for the wallet and daemon BEFORE LAUNCH, with the passwords to be released at the specified time. We will work with multiple pools to orchestrate a PROPER and FAIR release."

The release is really very timely. Back in November 2013 Bitcoin received a huge boost following the news that an FBI letter presented during a US Senate committee proved the bureau considered it a "legitimate financial service". Crytpocurrencies are most definitely already edging towards the mainstream due to the amount of press Bitcoin's ups and downs have received over the past year.

The general public is, however, either unsure how to use it, associates it with the criminal underground, or feels that the high value of one Bitcoin implies it's getting prohibitively expensive to experiment with and it's no longer worth getting in the game. It's why the service will be giving away coins at launch—"it will get people who are on the fence interested and help them to start using the currency, and we hope they'll share it with their friends, too." Coinye is also creating CoinyeMiner, a platform that simplifies the mining process for the uninitiated.

There are, of course, other less prolific cryptocurrencies that have come forth since Bitcoin's founding. And this is the point Coinye West is making—mining can be for the masses, the general public hasn't necessarily missed the boat on this one. Plus, Kanye West is marginally more of a trustworthy figure than a talking Shiba Inu, (even if it's been alleged he's an Illuminati follower).

Sounding a lot more like a promoter for the musician, the founders tell Noisey they picked him because he's "a trendsetter" (bringing back loin-cloth leather skirts for men), adding that we will be buying virtual tickets "and other ideas I can't give away just yet" with CoinYe, suggesting they've got ample marketing sweetspots with which to sell the idea to the man himself. Bizzarely, the representative said they don't want to pay him off in exchange for permission to use his image, but then said they'll send him 100,000 CoinYe at launch if he gets in touch.

Joke, promotion or soon to be defunct cryptocurrency when Kanye has his way? You tell us in the comments below.

Read the full interview at Noisey here.