For those who were questioning whether Haliey "Hawk Tuah Girl" Welch knew what she was doing when trying to get into the sometimes confusing world of cryptocurrency, it didn't take long to find out.
Although her viral fame can be traced back to a June 2024 vox pop, Welch has wasted no time trying to turn her 15 seconds of fame into an empire. As well as boasting her own Talk Tuah podcast, she's launched an AI-powered dating app named after her boyfriend AND tried to navigate the maze of memecoins. Unfortunately for Hawk Tuah Girl, the latter has crashed and burned in spectacular style.
Just 20 minutes after launching her $HAWK memecoin on December 4, Welch and her team found themselves caught in accusations of a 'pump and dump scam', with some claiming they'd put their life savings into her face-branded crypto.
Welch didn't do much to assuage her critics when she largely stayed silent during a lengthy X space and let others behind the memecoin do the talking. With calls for Welch to face jail time and crypto investor Scooter already filing legal proceedings while encouraging others to also do so, Welch has been forced to speak up.
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Posting a copy and pasted message on X, Welch wrote: "Hawkanomics: Team hasn’t sold one token and not 1 KOL was given 1 free token. We tried to stop snipers as best we could through high fee’s in the start of launch on @MeteoraAG. Fee’s have now been dropped."
$HAWK has plummeted from a high of $0.04916 to currently sit at just $0.002600, and with the 'team' accused of selling like nobody's business, there are theories that someone got very rich off other people's money, very fast.
The overHere account behind $HAWK tried to dispel rumors in a post where it said it was seeing a 'wild amount of fud circulating'. Again saying that the team didn't sell, the post was quickly slapped with a community note that reads: "The "team" and insiders have actually been selling their token since launch. A majority have never purchased anything and have only sold the tokens they were given. Hailey is lying and will likely have to "talk tuah" judge about this."
As Welch’s critics say the proof is literally there in the blockchain, there's seemingly nowhere to hide. As for jail time, law firm Burwick Law has posted on X saying: "We are representing clients in matters related to $HAWK. If you've experienced losses and would like to explore your options, learn more." It's unclear what's next for Welch, but the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been cracking down on pump and dump crypto scams since 2021 - dishing out a beefy $1.237 billion in civil monetary penalties.