In some ways, Yeezy's behave no different from your typical shitcoin pump and dump.
They are hyped up to otherworldly heights while the supply is kept to a minimum. Retail prices of these shoes start at around 180 dollars but eyeballing the resale prices will have you an eyesore, you'll find them reselling for upwards of 400 dollars and sometimes over 1000 dollars for the most sought after models.
But haven't we learned from the endless pump and dump shitcoin icos of 2016/2017? Let me remind you of how things went if you forgot..
Insiders buy the large majority of coins under ico prices as there are often "pre-sale" offerings to "private" investors before the public sale. These cronies collude to take up the prices as high as they can because driving the illusion of a fierce bidding market will bring in liquidity AFTER the prices begin to decline.
Prices decline when evidence of supply emerges, atleast that's the technical term in trading, but what it really means is the private investors and market manipulators start cashing out their stash which they bought at a profusely low cost basis and can happily market sell for years to come. As the price declines, people perceive the coin to be "cheap" as it was only recently trading at much higher (albeit fake and inflated prices).
This is the exact same thing in the sneaker game. We saw it with the Adidas NMD's and now we're seeing them with Yeezy. If you take a look around any sportswear store, you'll find NMD's sitting on the shelves but you'll be surprised to know that they were all the rage but a couple of years ago and no where to be found. When Adidas decided to sell out and mass produce them such that every person who never got a chance to buy whilst the hyped up trainer was making rounds on social media can now get in on them, the hype has very much passed. That is the nature of "hype", it's very definition means that should it become easy to procure a hype item, it can no longer BE a hype item.
Yeezy's to their credit held up hype for longer than expected, but with the dozens of colourways hitting the market every other week, and average miscreants, Joe, Gazza, and Baz all rocking them sweet Yeezy's on their flex Friday's, (and every other day of the friggin week for that matter), the Yeezy train has well and truly run it's course and it is soon going to be sitting on the shelves just like all the other has been sneakers.
Kanye knows the game well and kudos to him. He'd make a great shit coin pump and dumper.