Add Haliey Welch, the viral “Hawk Tuah” star, to the growing list of influencer misadventures in the crypto space.
The meme personality is facing serious backlash after her newly launched cryptocurrency, Hawk, nosedived from a market cap of $490 million to just $60 million in just a few hours.
The crypto community, including YouTuber ‘Coffeezilla’ (whose real name is Stephen Findeisen), accuses Welch of running a ‘pump and dump’ scheme, where hype drives up the price, only for insiders to make money and abandon investors to leave.
Welch denied any wrongdoing. In a social media post, she claimed her team was “trying to stop snipers,” bad actors who artificially inflate prices by purchasing large quantities early, creating an illusion of demand.
A community note on Welch’s X-post indicated that Welch’s team had “sold their token since launch.”
At last check on Saturday, Hawk Tuah coin was down more than 7%. A few minutes earlier it had risen by 0.45%.
What is at stake and has Hawk Tuah Girl benefited?
Sniping entices ordinary investors to buy into a token at a high price, thinking they are catching an upward trend.
After snipers sell their assets, the token’s price falls off a cliff, leaving late investors with virtually worthless assets.
Hawk was launched on the Solana blockchain, and while meme coins are usually seen as low-risk fun, it has sparked accusations of carpet pulling, a cryptocurrency scam where developers drain liquidity or suddenly shut down a project, causing the price to drop of the token plummets.
In a YouTube video posted on December 5, Coffeezilla – which has made a name for itself investigating the legitimacy of coins backed by influencers (i.e. Andrew Tate) – noted that Welch had paid approximately $125,000 up front from a non named company to market the Hawk Tuah. sign.
Welch, who made a name for himself by pretending to spit in a viral video, claimed the coin was intended to unite fans and tackle impersonators.
Unfortunately, the only thing uniting us seems to be confusion. A recorded back-and-forth between Coffeezilla and Welch’s legal representative, which currently has over 2.7 million views on YouTube, reveals what appears to be a complicated payment structure for Welch and the Hawk Tuah-inspired coin.
According to Coffeezilla’s conversation with its representatives, the plan was for Welch to then receive 50% of the net proceeds after “payments of third party fees,” Coffeezilla adds.
Details about the third parties remain unclear. Crypto.news reached out to Welch for comment but did not hear back.
“I think this whole situation is terrible and she should feel bad,” Coffeezilla concluded. “[Welch] went to bed with these people who clearly saw dollar signs. She saw dollar signs and they did this and people got hurt.”
See Coffeezilla’s exposé earlier.
