The launch of viral influencer Haliey Welch’s memecoin Hawk Tuah sparked outrage on social media as the newly launched token was briefly pumped and then quickly dumped following a controversial rollout involving allegations of shooters. elite and insider portfolios.
Welch has denied any insider sales or activity on behalf of his team or any affiliated entity.
The Hawk Tuak (HAWK) memecoin launched at 22:00 UTC on December 4 and quickly reached a peak market cap of $490 million.
The token’s price then fell and was trading at a valuation of $41.7 million at press time, a 91% drop in less than three hours, according to DexScreener data.
According to aggregated data from Bubblemaps and Dexscreener, a mix of internal wallets and sharpshooters – entities that quickly purchase huge amounts of tokens at launch – controlled between 80 and 90% of HAWK’s supply at launch.
In a December 5 post on X, Welch’s official account stated that the team had not sold any tokens and that no key opinion leaders had received free coins. He added that they launched the token on the decentralized liquidity protocol Meteora to reduce sniper risk.
“The team did not sell a single token and no KOL received a free token,” she said. “We tried to stop the snipers as best we could by paying high fees at the start of the launch on Meteora.”
Yet, according to data from block explorer Solana Solscanner, one wallet managed to pull HAWK within seconds of launch, purchasing 17.5% of memecoin’s supply for 4,195 Wrapped Solana (WSOL) – from worth $993,000 at the time.
Over the next hour and a half, the wallet sold 135.8 million HAWK tokens for a profit of $1.3 million.
“I really lost $43,000 aping the ‘hawk tuah’ coin,” one user wrote on X.
According to onchain data cited by several users on
HAWK memecoin risks legal backlash, observers say
Aside from the outrage over the token rollout, some observers have suggested the launch could put Welch and his team in a sticky situation with regulators.
Several X users claimed to have filed complaints with the SEC regarding memecoin, and law firms began advertising their services to those who lost money on the token.
In a December 5 article on X, Burwick Law asked anyone who lost money on memecoin to contact their company and inquire about their legal rights.
“If you have lost money on $HAWK, contact our firm to learn about your legal rights.”
