Admittedly, I don’t know much about cryptocurrency or meme coins, but I like to think I know enough that I wouldn’t invest in a brand new coin being pushed by a viral internet “celebrity”, and definitely when said internet celebrity is Hailey Welch AKA the Hawk Tuah Girl.
Sure enough, the Hawk Tuah Girl launched her very own crypto meme coin this week called $HAWK, which skyrocketed to a $500 million market cap before crashing to $60 million within 20 minutes. This resulted in a whole bunch of people losing their money, and now they want Welch throw into jail because they’re convinced it was scam/money grab from the start. Um, you don’t say?
Hawk is live!!!
HAWKThXRcNL9ZGZKqgUXLm4W8tnRZ7U6MVdEepSutj34 pic.twitter.com/9GFgYwpeFA
— Haliey Welch (@HalieyWelchX) December 4, 2024
I’m not exactly sure how someone can go to jail over a crypto scam or failed meme coin, but it sounds like what Hawk Tuah (or whoever is acting on her behalf) did here was what’s known as a ‘rug pull’. Coindesk describes it as follows:
A rug pull is a type of exit scam that involves a team raising money from investors and the public by selling a token only to quietly shut down the project or suddenly disappear, stealing the raised funds and leaving “investors” (i.e., their victims) with worthless tokens.
Rug pulls can be extensively orchestrated, with nefarious actors leveraging social media influencers and hype-generating campaigns to lure as many victims as possible.
Wow. Could the sweet, innocent Hawk Tuah Girl really be capable of something of like this? Maybe it’s a little sexist to think that she couldn’t, but something tells me there are other people doing all the dirty work and taking advantage of her behind the scenes. Then again, maybe not? It’s pretty amazing how much Hawk Tuah Girl has managed to extend her 15 minutes of fame thus far, so maybe she’s just that savvy that she can scam people out of millions of dollars with some bogus meme coin and then hide behind being ditzy little Southern belle.
According to Twitter’s Community Notes, it is indeed Hawk Tuah’s team and “insiders” profiting off this whole mess:
Copy and pasting:
Hawkanomics:
Team hasn’t sold one token and not 1 KOL was given 1 free token
We tried to stop snipers as best we could through high fee’s in the start of launch on @MeteoraAG
Fee’s have now been dropped pic.twitter.com/E7xN9VmCrx
— Haliey Welch (@HalieyWelchX) December 4, 2024
And some of the complaints/reactions online from those who lost money:
$HAWK tuah You fucked UP Big TIME ⚠️⚠️
How can someone who bought nothing profit $300,000$ and not just one person, but many? The proof is provided below.@HalieyWelchX You have some explaining to do … Especially to the court and to the people you stole money from pic.twitter.com/GAsBpRq89y
— Zac Hirda ♛ (@zakaria_hirda) December 4, 2024
Just filed my report against @HalieyWelchX and the $HAWK team for rugging investors. Here’s the link below to file a complaint https://t.co/3o2sniVyht https://t.co/ghatzK7L6d pic.twitter.com/Rjuj3LZqZB
— scooter (@imperooterxbt) December 5, 2024
Straight Tuah Prison pic.twitter.com/JK5OQ3qmQT
— Keyboard Monkey -KBM- (@KeyboardMonkey3) December 5, 2024
It’s hard to have too much sympathy for these bozos calling for her to be jailed tbh. I mean, if you’re dumb enough to invest in a meme coin being pushed by a random girl who went viral for saying “Hawk Tuah” on the internet, then surely you deserve to lose every penny.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens, but it would be very shocking if the Hawk Tuah saga ends with this girl going to prison for financial crimes on the internet. Just when her Talk Tuah podcast was really taking off, too!
