‘Hawk Tuah’ Girl Faces Allegations of $490 Million Crypto Scam

Hailey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah” girl for a video that went viral earlier in 2024, is facing allegations of scamming her fans through a crypto meme coin that plummeted in value after launch.

Welch’s digital coin, “Hawk,” hit a $490 million market cap after it launched on Wednesday before losing almost 95 percent of its value in a matter of hours.

Some online users, and, more prominently, YouTube investigator Coffeezilla, who has previously unmasked alleged crypto scams committed by the likes of Logan Paul and Andrew Tate, accused the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl of scamming investors with a “pump and dump” crypto scheme.

Hawk Tuah girl, Hailey Welch, denies crypto scam allegations

In a statement she posted on her X account, Welch denied any wrongdoing. Her representatives have also claimed that no one on Welch’s team has sold any of the tokens they themselves held, and no key opinion leaders were gifted a token.

Before launch, however, Welch had given away free Hawk tokens to fans before it launched on the Solana blockchain. After its release on Wednesday, the market capitalization of the Hawk coin reached $490 million before plummeting to a value of just $60 million twenty minutes later.

In case you don’t know who the “Hawk Tuah girl” is:

Her real name is Haliey Welch.

She’s a 22-year-old woman who became famous for her viral TikTok video: pic.twitter.com/trhUWGA6AK

— Shuriken (@ShurikenTrade) December 6, 2024

The immediate backlash faced by the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl and her team was due to their allegedly “misleading” and “betraying” her fans. It was claimed that the launch had been a “rug pull” by which promoters of a cryptocurrency lure in investors only to stop trading the coin and make a profit from the money raised from sales.

In fact, a community note on X contradicted Welch’s previous statement that claimed no one on the team sold their crypto tokens. It has been said that both she and her team sold the Hawk coins they owned from launch.

Internet investigator Coffeezilla claims Welch gave insiders an advantage

Coffeezilla, whose real name is Stephen Findeisen, claimed that the Hawk Tuah girl gave crypto insiders an advantage before investing in her coin.

It is worth mentioning that Coffeezilla is a high profile YouTuber whose content focuses on looking into possible scams by influencers and social media stars. Most of these scams are crypto-related. His videos look into the likes of Logan Paul, Andrew Tate, and even Mr. Beast. They have gained millions of views on the platform, and now, he has shifted his focus to the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl’s alleged crypto scam.

So here’s what really happened:

Bubblemaps revealed that 96% of the supply was in one cluster.

285 investors joined the $HAWK presale.

89 wallets sold 100% immediately. pic.twitter.com/JdyNytjSWN

— Shuriken (@ShurikenTrade) December 6, 2024

In his video about this alleged scam, Coffeezilla said, “Unfortunately with situations like this, they’re not targeting crypto bros, [but] they’re mostly targeting actual fans who have never been involved in the crypto space before.”

He added, “These people were unwilling to take any accountability” for the “Hawk Tuah scam.” The video has been up for 16 hours and has amassed nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube.