Haliey Welch's team has offered their perspective on what happening with their cryptocurrency after people lost a staggering amount of money.
Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah Girl,” rose to fame earlier this year following her viral interview during a night out with friends.
When asked to reveal one thing that could drive a man wild in the bedroom, Welch quipped: “You gotta give it that hawk tuah, and spit on that thing.”
The cheeky line has spawned a showbiz career for Haliey, who now hosts the popular Talk Tuah podcast.
But while 2024 was a breakthrough year for Haliey, its end has been marred by allegations and accusations tied to her venture into the cryptocurrency world.
Haliey launched her meme coin, $HAWK, hoping to capitalize on her online fame, and later describing the venture as "a good way to interact with [her] fans".
Meme coins, inspired by internet culture, have become a trendy yet volatile segment of the cryptocurrency market.
At first, $HAWK appeared to follow the classic meme coin trajectory, surging to a market capitalization of $490 million within hours of its launch.
However, the excitement quickly soured. Within three hours, the coin’s value plunged by a staggering 91%, according to cryptocurrency publication CoinTelegraph.
The crash has led to accusations from fans and investors, some claiming Haliey orchestrated a “rug pull”.
In the world of cryptocurrency, a "rug pull" is a type of fraudulent scam where the developers of a cryptocurrency or NFT project abruptly abandon the project after raising funds from investors.
This leaves investors with worthless tokens or NFTs and the developers with the funds they raised. Fans took to X to complain about their alleged losses, with some people claiming to have lost their "life savings". Others called for legal action to be taken against the star.
As speculation grows about potential lawsuits from those affected, Haliey has denied any wrongdoing, asserting that her team attempted to prevent such outcomes.
Welch addressed the issue on social media, writing: “We tried to stop snipers as best we could through high fee’s in the start of launch on @MeteoraAG.”
In addition to Haliey’s comments, her $HAWK platform, overHere, issued a statement on Monday (December 16) explaining their intentions and detailing the challenges they faced during the launch.
The platform’s statement began by outlining their vision for the project: “We Only Built Airdrop Tech for Web2 Fans, for Free. We saw $HAWK as the perfect use case for our startup’s idea: to bring airdrops to Web2.”
The team described the project as an innovative effort to transition traditional internet users (Web2) into the decentralized crypto world (Web3) using culture rather than speculation.
They explained their motivation behind partnering with Haliey: “Haliey Welch - a literal meme - launching a meme coin felt like synchronicity. Our goal was simple: bring Web2 fans into Web3 seamlessly.”
However, they admitted missteps during the rollout: “We believed in that vision so much that [we] pushed harder and harder, perhaps through rose-tinted glasses and naivety about others’ intentions, even as the project began to unravel.”
OverHere suggested that the situation deteriorated due to shifting community sentiment and decisions by an individual identified as "Doc Hollywood".
According to the statement, this person allegedly controlled critical aspects of the project, including token decisions, fees, and the treasury.
“What started with plans for a lock-up eventually ended with none,” they said, attributing the unraveling of the project to these changes.
They further alleged that Doc Hollywood imposed 15% trading fees, which contributed to investor losses.
However, Alexander Larson Shultz, the individual referred to as "Doc Hollywood", has denied these claims, as reported by IBT.