Haliey Welch, more popularly known as the Hawk Tuah Girl, has found herself in some trouble, with people calling for her to be jailed after they lost money buying her cryptocurrency.
The 22-year-old was catapulted to stardom when a clip of her describing ‘one thing that can drive a man wild in the bedroom’ went viral.
As featured in her online nickname, she responded: “You gotta give it that hawk tuah, and spit on that thing.”
Following the video, Welch gained a huge social media following and now hosts a popular podcast called Talk Tuah.
However, the life-changing year is ending on a less positive note for her.
Her very own meme coin, $HAWK was launched earlier this week, as a move to leverage her online fame into the crypto market.
The Daily Mail has since reported that the coin’s rapid rise and dramatic fall have left fans and investors reeling.
Gaining huge momentum in recent years, meme coins are cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes.
The currency often started as jokes, but now holds significant financial value.
According to CoinTelegraph, $HAWK coin soared to a market capitalisation price of $490 million shortly after its launch this past Wednesday, before it plummeted by 91% within three hours.
The sharp drop has sparked accusations from both the crypto community and Welch’s fans, with some saying the collapse was due to ‘crypto snipers’, those who rapidly buy and sell new tokens to exploit volatility.
Data from crypto analytics platform has only increased speculation about insider trading.
It was revealed in reports from Dexscreener and Coinspeaker that insider wallets and snipers controlled 80-90% of $HAWK’s initial supply.
Buyers of the currency are not happy.
One person took to X to say: “I am a huge fan of Hawk Tuah but you took my life savings.”
They continued: “I purchased your coin $Hawk that you were so excited about with my life savings and children’s college education fund as well.
“You didn’t mention that you were going to buy 97% of the supply and sell it almost immediately to make a large profit.”
Other have publicly called for Welch to face serious consequences.
“Haliey Welch you’re going to f***ing jail,” one person stated.
Another agreed, commenting: “Hailey I’m not even kidding when I say this, you are most likely going to prison.”
Welch’s team responded to the hysteria saying: “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 fees in the start of launch on @MeteoraAG. Fees have now been dropped.”
OverHere, a platform involved with $HAWK, double down on this stating: “Haliey’s Team has sold absolutely no tokens whatsoever. Haliey’s Team has 10% allocation which is locked for 1 year and vested over 3 years. The rest of the tokens are distributed into the different wallets as according to the tokenomics.”
Prior to $HAWK’s launch, the 22-year old denied that the venture was a ‘cash grab’, but as a way to engage with her fanbase.
“Crypto is a good way to interact with my fans,” Welch added.