Haliey Welch, 22, became a social media personality during the summers over the "hawk tuah" TikTok video, which instantly became a hit and enabled her to launch her own merchandise, the "Talk Tuah" podcast in September, and even an AI-based dating app called "Pookie Tools." Her Instagram presence swelled to 2.6 million followers, and she is often seen posting pictures with celebrities and inviting many of them, including Wiz Khalifa, to her popular podcast.
In June, an interviewer on the street during the CMA Fest in Nashville, Tennessee, asked her about "the move in bed that makes a man go crazy," to which she said, "you got to give him that 'hawk tuah,'" which is an onomatopoeia for spitting sounds. She went from having no social media presence before that to securing billions of media impressions in a short span.
A Bizarre Memecoin Decision
Welch launched her "HAWK" meme coin last week. Meme coins are highly volatile and usually attempt to capitalise on the momentum of trending social media memes. Welch's coin reached a market capitalisation of $490 million before nosediving to under a million dollars on December 9, trading at $0.00085 per token. The meme coin was launched on the Solana blockchain for entertainment purposes, but the launch translated to significant losses for many traders.
Popular crypto YouTuber Coffeezilla said in a high-tension X space conversation with Welch and her associates that the meme coin rollout was among "the most miserable, horrible launches I've ever seen." Coffeezilla also accused them of insider trading, which the Hawk Tuah team vehemently refuted.
According to CoinTelegraph's analysis of blockchain information from Bubblemaps, up to 90% of the meme coin token supply was controlled by insiders or snipers. These snipers are entities that buy vast amounts of a cryptocurrency's supply during launch. However, in an X post, Welch said that her team still holds the tokens and attempted "to stop the snipers as best we could."
Potential Legal Problems For Welch's Memecoin Launch
The immediate backlash on social media has led many to wonder if the HAWK launch can have legal consequences for Welch. Burwick Law, which oversees legal matters about cryptocurrency, recently tweeted on X, encouraging investors who lost wealth due to the meme coin to reach out for clarity about their "legal rights."
Although the legality of the HAWK launch is still under review, several critics speculate that the coin was deployed as part of a "pump and dump" scheme, which involves artificially inflating crypto token prices before they are sold off, causing the token value to plummet.
The pump-and-dump trend has led to massive investor losses in recent years. The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission began clamping down on similar crypto activities in early 2021, charging multiple people on counts of committing fraud through deception and earning millions illegally. Many are also terming the HAWK crash as a "rug pull," where crypto developers of a project withdraw all funds, rendering all tokens held by investors worthless.
Welch's Death Rumours Flood The Internet
The situation around Welch and her crypto launch took a weirder turn as a social media user, Scrim, with over 24,000 followers, posted on X that she was dead. "Breaking News: Hailey Welch found dead at the age of 22 years old," the post read. While the shocking claim of her demise after the alleged crypto scam garnered considerable attention from netizens, no official announcement from any reliable source has been made yet.
