- Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama has broken his silence on the Hawk Tuah controversy.
- He advised the community to ignore the token during preparations for the SHIFU airdrop.
Shytoshi Kusamathe leading developer of the Shiba Inu Ecosystem (SHIB), has warned community members against investing in the controversial “Hawk Tuah” project. At the same time, Shytoshi denied any involvement in the project team.
Shytoshi denies any involvement in the “Hawk Tuah” project
On Platform X, Kusama shared details about his alleged connection to the recently launched memecoin Hawk Tuah.
Started by influencer Haliey Welch of “Hawk Tuah” fame, the memecoin was quickly pumped and dumped shortly after its release. Some crypto market participants have accused the team behind the official Shiba Inu X account of promoting the pump-and-dump coin.
Kusama acknowledged in the X post that Welch’s team approached him months ago to promote the piece.
The lead developer said he declined the offer and moved on. Kusama admitted that things quickly escalated when he received a message that Team Welch wanted to airdrop millions of tokens to the SHIB army.
Kusama admitted to accepting the free tokens, stating:
Because Shib is decentralized, the post including Shib was deleted anyway. So okay, you want to airdrop tokens, it won’t be the first or last, and we have methods in place to properly accept them (Leash, etc.), as we have done in the past. So of course. RT from the main account.
Despite this, Kusama denied any collaboration or agreement with the team at the time. The Shiba Inu leader said that as they prepared for the drop, Welch’s team did a “snap launch.” He said he was shocked that the team denied his involvement and called the act shameful.
The lead developer revealed that he held around $60,000 worth of HAWK coins and expressed his disapproval of getting involved in the Memcoin launch.
Thus, he said the ecosystem would politely decline and ignore or ask Welch’s team to burn the tokens for the benefit of SHIB. Meanwhile, Team Welch has since denied the allegations, noting that no free tokens were given to any influencers.
According to data from Dexscreener, the Solana-based coin SOL/USD is down 29.07% over the past 24 hours. Additionally, the market cap dropped to $24.9 million from $425 million immediately after launch.
Kusama Endorses SHIFU Memecoin
Kusama’s revelation about the “Hawk Tuah” project follows the recent expansion of the Shiba Inu ecosystem.
CNF reported that Kusama announced the launch of SHIFU, a new dog-themed coin. Airdrop for the new memecoin will be available to SHIB, BUBBLE, LEASH and IO NFT holders.
Popular crypto advocate Lark Davis said the snapshot process should begin soon, adding even more excitement to the project. Kusama’s endorsement brought credibility to the SHIFU memecoin.
Shiba Inu remains one of the best performing tokens on the market amid the SHIFU hype. Over the past week, the token has appreciated by 16.3%and monthly earnings amounted to 57.5%setting the price at $0.00002996.
As revealed by a CNF jobanalysts maintain a bullish stance, despite a 65% drop from its all-time high price. For example, crypto analyst Therealcryptojk expects a jump above $0.00003182.
Another analyst, AbichaDagreat, has set price targets between $0.0002 and $0.0006 for SHIB in 2025.