Hawk Tuah girl Haliey Welch is still missing after the disastrous launch of her $HAWK cryptocurrency, and there are some pretty dark rumors circling about her disappearance.
Welch shot to fame after uttering “Hawk, Tuah!” on a now-viral clip, which, in turn, led to her getting her own Talk Tuah podcast. No, your brain’s not short-circuiting; that’s something that actually happened, and to be fair, people have gone viral for less.
That fame led to Welch attaching her name to the $HAWK cryptocurrency, which was nothing short of a disaster. Launched on December 4th, this meme coin lost 95% of its value hours later (via BBC News), with allegations of insider training. Now, with investors after blood, Welch has disappeared from public view.
There are rumors going around that she’s deceased, but so far they’re just hearsay; it seems more likely she’s alive but is keeping her head down. The last time anyone heard from her was when she bailed on a Twitter Spaces stream addressing the coin’s failure.
She and her meme coin business partners were roasted over the launch. YouTube-based investigator Coffeezilla stepped up with some tough questions, which included asking who benefited from the transaction fees. You can watch him in action here, though he didn’t get many clear answers.
Coffeezilla refused to back down and was eventually muted, but that didn’t stop other attendees from quizzing Welch and partners. Halfway through one of these questions, Welch bolted, declaring, “Anyhoo, I’m going to go to bed and I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” as if it’d all be forgotten about by morning.
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But no one has forgotten, least of all the coin’s investors, some of whom are suing Welch’s partners, though not Welch directly. As reported by Newsweek, a lawsuit has been filed over the failed meme coin, with the plaintiffs alleging that “Defendants leveraged the extensive social media following of Hailey Welch, a prominent social media personality known as the ‘Hawk Tuah Girl,’ to market the Token as a groundbreaking cryptocurrency project.”
The investors included in that suit report individual losses of up to $70,000. Though given that the coin dropped in value from $500m to $60m, it’s likely those who purchased $Hawk/Hawk Tuah Coin lost much, much more. As spotted by a keen-eyed Reddit user, one investor appears to have lost $120,000.
During the Twitter Spaces broadcast, Welch’s partners tried to blame third-party “snipers” for the coin’s failure, but it’s alleged that the whole thing was a rug pull, which, as explained by CoinBase, is “..where developers abandon a project after raising assets, leaving participants with worthless tokens.”
Rug pulls are unsettlingly common in the world of cryptocurrency, and there have been comments calling $HAWK’s investors idiots who should have known better. And the statements surrounding Welch’s rumored death have been as acerbic as you might expect. Some of the replies are clearly making things up, with all the credibility of that one kid whose uncle works at Nintendo.
Given Welch’s status as a living meme, however, many of those who invested may have just been fans, without the knowledge or experience to appreciate the risks. Internet Archivist, who also covered the situation, suggested that both investors and the FCC would be looking to make an example of her and her partners. Right now, Haliey “Hawk Tuah” Welch has every reason to hide.
Published: Dec 20, 2024 09:56 am