Internet star Haliey Welch, also known as “Hawk Tuah Girl,” said Friday that she is “fully cooperating” with lawyers representing those affected by the recent crash of the $HAWK cryptocurrency.
Welch helped launch the cryptocurrency, named after his viral slogan, earlier this month. A few hours after the digital coin was made available, its price dropped and the 22-year-old influencer faces charges that it was a scam. At the time, Welch’s team blamed “snipers” – bots programmed to buy tokens immediately after launch and resell them when prices spike – of being behind the capitalization fluctuation. stock market.
Investors in the $HAWK coin filed a lawsuit Thursday against the coin’s creators, accusing the company overHere Ltd., its founder, Clinton So, the Tuah The Moon Foundation and social media influencer Alex Larson Schultz of illegally promoting and selling a cryptocurrency that they believe was never properly registered with the SEC.
The complaint, a copy of which was reviewed by NBC News, was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. It does not name Welch as a defendant.
In an article on X on Friday, Welch responded to the lawsuit, urging those who “suffered losses related to this” to contact law firm Burwick PLLC.
“I take this situation extremely seriously and want to address my fans, the investors who have been affected and the broader community,” she said. wrote. “I am fully cooperating and committed to assisting the legal team representing those affected, as well as helping to uncover the truth, hold responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter.”
A spokesperson for Welch did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment Friday.
Burwick PLLC, which partnered with law firm Wolf Popper LLC, said the $HAWK token’s market capitalization “jumped” to $491 million after its Dec. 4 launch, but that “its meteoric rise has was short-lived, as the value of the $HAWK token fell. by more than 90% in a few hours, falling below $100 million.
“This extreme volatility has left many investors, particularly new cryptocurrency investors attracted by Haliey Welch’s involvement, facing significant financial losses,” the two companies wrote in a statement. press release Friday.
Wolf Popper LLP and Burwick Law said they “seek to recover on behalf of plaintiffs and the class purchases of $HAWK tokens.”
Welch jumped into the crypto craze after months of building her brand. Since June, when her interview went viral, she has capitalized on her success with Hawk Tuah-themed merchandise, her podcast “Talk Tuah” and the launch of her AI dating assistant app Pookie Tools.
In the days leading up to the launch of $HAWK, she promoted it in several articles on X. In an interview with Fortuneshe said she considered crypto “just a scam” and an “easy way for you to lose money.” However, she said she began to see it as a “good way to interact with fans” after attending several cryptocurrency conferences.
In a December 4 article on X following the initial controversy, Welch said that she and the people behind the coin had not sold any of their holdings.
Memecoins are cryptocurrencies such as DOGE (named after the iconic doge meme) and MOODENG (named after the viral baby pygmy hippopotamus), which were inspired by Internet memes. Their market performance can be volatile, depending largely on the hype generated by social media trends. But some memecoins have also sparked controversyand celebrities who touted crypto coins without transparency about their financial incentives have also been subject to scrutiny and legal action.
In a joint statement on On Friday, Wolf Popper LLP and Burwick Law wrote: “Unfortunately, this is one of many memecoin cases where institutional greed has exploited celebrities and their influence to harm ordinary people. »