Since becoming a viral star this summer thanks to a street interview in which she charmingly dispensed graphic sex advice, Haliey Welch, aka “Girl Tuah Falcon“, launched a podcast and an animal charity, carving out a nice niche as an influencer. Being more online, of course, has allowed her to maintain and enjoy her fame, even if it has also earned curious mentions — Welch regular touts the magnitude of Twitter), its owner, Elon MuskAnd Teslait’s troubled Cybertruckto take a handful of interrelated examples.
Along the way, Welch also found herself embroiled in the world of cryptocurrency And boost bitcoinin which she invested. Unsurprisingly, for a woman who bills herself as the “queen of memes,” she also owns Dogecoin, a so-called “coin” based on the iconic “doge” meme of a Shiba Inu. (she bought it because of Musk’s enthusiasm for the meme and the active, which now have lent his name to his Ministry of Government Effectivenessor DOGE, a commission he is about to run for president-elect Donald Trump.) Being a meme herself, perhaps it was inevitable that crypto entrepreneurs would see the opportunity to leverage the Welch’s brand for a new piece in the same vein. So on Wednesday, she and a team of advisors launched $HAWK, on ​​the Solana blockchain platform, while promising that it complied with securities laws and definitely didn’t. a seizure of money.
A day later, hardly anyone in the crypto industry believes him. With anticipation high, the coin’s value exploded 900% during initial trading on Wednesday, bringing $HAWK’s market cap to nearly half a billion dollars. Then, just as quickly, the price collapsed by around 95%, wiping out retail investors within hours. (The market cap has since recovered slightly, reaching $28 million.) Accusations began to fly, with many crypto observers alleging that $HAWK was a pump and dump scheme, or a rug pull – when developers create hype for a crypto project to rise. money only to liquidate their position and walk away, while others are left with worthless chips.
The alleged evidence from $HAWK insiders was especially interesting when the coin crashed. relieve themselves of their issues for huge sums, and some buyers known as “snipers” quickly accumulated a large majority of available coins which they quickly unloaded for instant profit. A crypto wallet, as the publication says Cointelegraph found, was able to seize 17.5 percent of the offer, then flip it for $1.3 million in just 90 minutes. According to blockchain data analyst Bubblemaps, 96% of $HAWK was concentrated in a cluster associated wallets on Wednesday afternoon, indicating a high degree of coordination in these transactions.
Welch and his team tried to do damage control Wednesday night during an X Spaces audio event, but they failed to dispel suspicions of a scam as investors began to do so. file complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and at least one law firm announced its services to the people concerned. Welch remained mostly silent during the hour-long conversation, allowing her crypto partners at the platform here, which launched $HAWK, and a person known as “Doc Hollywood” to answer questions. Pressed to know what was wrong, the men spoke in evasive circles, insisting that the 18-person team behind $HAWK had not sold its tokens.
The discussion became controversial when Stephen Findeisen, a YouTuber known as Coffeezilla and known for his hardline crypto fraud investigationswas allowed to speak. “This is one of the most miserable, horrible launches I’ve ever seen in my life,” Findeisen said, prompting Welch to interject, seemingly oblivious to his work, “OK, so why are you here ?” Findeisen then asked Hollywood who received nearly $2 million from unusually high transaction fees for $HAWK trades; Hollywood said it had reached out to the Cayman Islands foundation that developed the project, but would not give further details about the organization. He and an OverHere representative pledged to produce evidence to counter the allegations of improper financial activities, but, by the following afternoon, had failed to do so. Findeisen concluded his speech by calling $HAWK a “scam.”
At another point in the call, Richard Bengston, a YouTuber known as FaZe Banks, agreed with Findeisen’s harsh assessment. He advised Welch to immediately fire anyone who persuaded her to be the face of “mismanaged” cryptocurrency, saying the $HAWK disaster was another example of influencers entering the crypto space without understanding how to do due diligence and protect their public. She did not accept the advice, but 20 minutes later Welch abruptly interjected on a technicality and said, “Anyway, I’m going to bed and I’ll see you tomorrow,” thus ending the the interrogation. .
A representative for Welch did not respond to a request for comment from rolling stonebut the Spaces discussion was obviously overwhelming enough for her to delete the record of her X account. (It remains available through a YouTube Download.) Findeisen then held a Spaces debrief on his own account, continuing to hammer the $HAWK developers for dodging his questions, adding that they sometimes muted him. He also lamented that it was probably not experienced crypto investors who were affected by the crash, but newcomers to the scene. “The most insidious part of what they said is that we are targeting regular people, regular fans,” he said of Team $HAWK. “We want to bring (Welch’s) fans into crypto. And unfortunately, that’s where you find some really sad stories of people investing their money in these things without knowing what’s going on.
On Thursday evening, Findeisen released a video covering the entire situation. It included screenshots of text messages from Welch’s entertainment lawyer revealing that she had received a $125,000 advance for marketing the token from an unspecified company and was to receive 50% of the This company’s net proceeds after third party expenses and development and launch costs had been covered. In a follow-up message, Welch’s attorney added, “She really didn’t intend to defraud fans.”
“I think there were a lot of signs that this wasn’t going to work,” Findeisen says. rolling stone. “They sold 17 percent of the tokens to insiders who had no lock-up for their tokens, while they only made 3 percent public for trading purposes. I feel like Welch was misinformed, but also that Welch saw the dollar signs and didn’t ask enough questions. Plus, she didn’t seem to take it too seriously when confronted. I hope she recognizes the wrongness of what she did, intentional or not, and takes responsibility to help her fans who lost money.
A few defensiveI have to “speak tuah” judge.” She posted nothing else Thursday as jokes about a possible prison sentence continued to spread. And while it remains to be seen what legal or reputational consequences she will face for her foray into crypto, she has already had the dubious honor of inspiring a “revenge play.” $TUAHas in “straight prison tuah.” Fueled by memes of Welch behind bars, investors are trying to drive the value of $TUAH high enough to exceeds the market cap of $HAWKand they just might succeed.
However, as with every new crypto fad, there will likely be a few poor saps left holding the bag.