Hailey Welch, the American social media influencer popularly known as ‘Hawk Tuah Girl’ is in the middle of a big scandal. This comes only a few weeks after the memecoin she had launched, HAWK, nose-dived. It led to the loss of millions in investors’ money, causing controversy.
Greatly benefiting from her popularity, Hailey released her own cryptocurrency token, HAWK, to promote herself further. The memecoin was launched on the Solana blockchain, and it quickly lifted off and gained a market capitalization of $500 million. However, HAWK investors incurred heavy losses as the token’s value crashed by 91% shortly after.
Investors Lose Big in HAWK
On Dec 7, @0xDarya’s thread on X painted a picture of how the crash unfolded. As stated in the post, Welch sent her followers to pump a combined $50 million into HAWK. However, Welch came out to deny foul play, sharing tokenomics details and stating that her team only controlled 10% of the tokens and that vesting schedules were in place. “Even investors couldn’t dump the token this aggressively,” said @0xDarya_ in her X post.
Welch gained fame after a TikTok video in which she mimicked the sound of spitting, using the term ‘Hawk tuah’. This peculiar performance sent her to fame, and she got to work with stars and have a top-rated podcast. According to 0xDarya, Welch made as much as $30,000 per night at the exclusive events, making her a true internet star.
Crypto Investigator Weighs In
Even though her popularity has declined sharply, Hailey stood her ground and justified herself. She explained the token distribution in HAWK and emphasized that the team has sold none of the tokens, but a portion will be given to the team members with a lock-up period for the funds. However, these claims were quickly dismissed as the price continued to fall, with many people wondering whether the token launch was a rug pull.
Magic Eden Launched ‘Captain Laserhawk’ NFT with UbisoftCrypto investigator Coffeezilla took a more rational approach to the situation. He dismissed the allegations that Hailey had grossed $50 million or masterminded a $500 million rug pull. He affirmed that regular investors lost much money but discouraged people from exaggerating the losses without substantiation. Coffeezilla says no legal actions have been taken. Welch’s meteoric rise may become a cautionary tale about the volatile intersection of internet fame and cryptocurrency.
