Hawk Tuah Lady’s Crypto Challenge Accused of Rug Pull After Big Promote-Off

Hailey Welch, higher recognized on-line because the “Hawk Tuah lady” who grew to become an in a single day web sensation with a woman-on-the-street interview, launched her personal cryptocurrency on Wednesday. Welch has turned her quarter-hour of web fame right into a full-blown new media endeavor with a podcast. However the content material creator was instantly on the defensive after the market cap of her token hit $490 million, solely to plunge over 90% just some hours later.

The Hawk Tuah cryptocurrency, listed as HAWK, was launched on the Solana blockchain and has been billed as a memecoin—crypto that will get an enormous enhance in worth because of widespread web consideration. Welch informed Fortune journal that HAWK was “not only a money seize,” although it’s exhausting to know how any memecoin may very well be something however a option to make monumental quantities of cash floated by nothing greater than digital hype. That’s all any memecoin is or aspires to be.

However no matter Welch’s motivation, she’s now defending herself towards fees that somebody on her group has been accountable for a rug pull—the time period for launching a coin, getting individuals to purchase it by super hype, after which promoting in a way that extracts all of the liquidity, leaving suckers who purchased the coin holding nugatory ones and zeroes.

Huge quantities of the coin had been bought within the hours after launch, taking the coin from a listed market cap of $490 million to a market cap of simply $41.7 million after a number of hours, as crypto information outlet CoinTelegraph experiences. However that was Wednesday. Right here on Thursday, it’s fallen ever additional, with a market cap of simply $28.4 million and liquidity of simply $1.6 million, based on DexScreener.

“Crew hasn’t bought one token and never 1 KOL was given 1 free token,” Welch tweeted on Wednesday. “We tried to cease snipers as greatest we may by excessive price’s within the begin of launch on @MeteoraAG. Price’s have now been dropped.”

Copy and pasting:

Hawkanomics:

Crew hasn’t bought one token and never 1 KOL was given 1 free token

We tried to cease snipers as greatest we may by excessive price’s within the begin of launch on @MeteoraAG

Price’s have now been dropped pic.twitter.com/E7xN9VmCrx

— Haliey Welch (@HalieyWelchX) December 4, 2024

Welch insists that nobody from her group has bought any of her cryptocurrency, however there’s a heated debate on X about whether or not that’s actually the case, with individuals posting screenshots purporting to point out gross sales they are saying are from her group. Representatives for Welch didn’t instantly reply to questions concerning the cryptocurrency emailed Thursday. Gizmodo will replace this submit if we hear again.

Within the meantime, will probably be fascinating to see what occurs to Welch’s crypto experiment. Essentially, memecoins don’t serve any helpful function past hypothesis and wealth extraction. So it’s not clear why anybody would wish to purchase it until they thought they may generate income promoting it for a better worth later. And Welch’s speak with Fortune didn’t recommend she has any daring plans for the token.

From Fortune:

Welch says that she used to think about crypto as “only a rip-off” and an “straightforward method so that you can lose cash,” however modified her thoughts after attending the conferences. When requested what points of crypto appealed to her, she stated it was a “actually good factor” and a “good option to work together with my followers.” Welch wasn’t conscious of any particular advantages that her memecoin holders would obtain, although her supervisor added that they plan to have “extra fan engagements round it,” with out providing additional particulars.

If you happen to purchase this coin, that’s on you. However that’s all the time the case on the earth of crypto.