In brief
- The lawsuit claims Iggy Azalea’s meme coin, MOTHER, was marketed with misleading promises.
- Investors point to failed integrations, including casino and telecom use.
- The Solana-based token has fallen more than 99% from its peak.
Rapper Iggy Azalea is facing a class action lawsuit in federal court in New York over allegations that she misled investors about the utility and development of her Solana-based meme coin, which trades as MOTHER.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses Azalea of promoting the token as having real-world use cases and commercial integrations that did not materialize, leading to investor losses.
“This case is not about ordinary volatility in a cryptocurrency or the inherent risk that a speculative digital asset may decline in value,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said. “It is about a celebrity-led promotional campaign that induced consumers to purchase and hold a digital token through specific, material representations about real-world utility, commercial integrations, institutional market maker support, and continuing development.”
The plaintiff, Wisconsin resident Kenneth Kolbrak, is seeking damages on behalf of investors who purchased Azalea’s meme coin and lost money. He claims he bought the token after seeing statements about its utility and would not have done so, or would have paid less, if those claims had been accurate.
Amethyst Amelia Kelly, known professionally as Iggy Azalea, entered the crypto market in 2024 during a wave of celebrity meme coins, launching MOTHER on Solana. The token quickly gained traction and surged to a market capitalization of over $200 million within weeks of launch. At its peak, MOTHER traded at about $0.23 per token, giving it a fully diluted valuation of roughly $227 million based on total supply, and it has since declined by more than 99%, according to CoinGecko.
Unlike many celebrity-backed tokens, Azalea stayed closely involved in the project. She promoted it heavily on social media, engaged with the community, and tied the token to a broader ecosystem that included events, a planned casino called Motherland, and other ventures, including a telecommunications service and a retail marketplace.
According to the lawsuit, Azalea promoted “Motherland” as being powered by MOTHER, but alleges that when the casino launched in early 2025, its core operations used USDT instead.
The lawsuit also claims Azalea said users could buy phones and pay bills with MOTHER through Unreal Mobile and use the token exclusively on a planned marketplace called DreamVault, but alleges neither worked nor launched as described.
“As of the date of this Complaint, no durable, publicly observable MOTHER payment integration exists on the Unreal Mobile platform,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit raises additional questions about Azalea’s relationships with crypto market makers Wintermute and DWF Labs. While those partnerships were presented as a sign of institutional support, the complaint alleges that investors were not told how those firms could trade the token or how those arrangements might affect price dynamics.
The lawsuit seeks damages for investors who lost money, including statutory and potentially triple damages, along with attorneys’ fees and a jury trial, and names additional “Doe Defendants,” a legal placeholder for individuals whose identities are not yet known.
The lawsuit is being brought forth by Burwick Law, which has made a name for itself in crypto circles for going after meme coin promoters and projects. The law firm was notably behind the lawsuit filed against Hailey Welch, known as the “Hawk Tuah” girl, and promoters of her meme coin. To date, the law firm has yet to secure successful judgments in any meme coin cases, as most remain in pre-trial phases.
Representatives for Azalea and Burwick Law did not immediately respond to Decrypt‘s request for comment.
