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Haliey Welch, aka the Hawk Tuah Girl, has been radio silent since facing immense backlash after her meme coin crashed, leading to allegations of insider trading and rug-pulling. On December 4, Welch launched her $HAWK coin, which hit a $490m market cap minutes after its release.
However, the coin's value collapsed by more than 93% soon after it hit the market cap. According to Decrypt, the collapse allegedly occurred after 285 investors who collectively acquired 96% of the $HAWK coins sold their shares just as people started buying them, causing their value to plummet.
This dramatic change caused many to accuse the Hawk Tuah Girl of pulling a scam. During an X Spaces conversation after the event, the social media star denied the allegations, ending her chat with,
“Anywho. I’m gonna go to bed now, see you all tomorrow.”
Welch has yet to appear after this. She has been inactive on all her social media profiles, and it has been two weeks since she uploaded an episode on her Talk Tuah podcast.
The Hawk Tuah Girl's absence was noticed by netizens, who wondered what happened to her. Others claimed that they would also disappear if they had faced her situation, with one person tweeting:
"$50 million! I would disappear too!"
The memes wrote themselves on social media, with many joking about the Hawk Tuah Girl's last statement before she disappeared from the internet.
"Famous last words: “Anywho. I’m gonna go to bed now, see you all tomorrow”," one person tweeted.
"Maybe she was really tired," another person added.
"Her career ended in the same year it started," someone else commented.
"She’s sleeping beauty guys! Leave her alone! It’s for the new Disney remake," another user wrote.
However, others defended the Hawk Tuah Girl, claiming she did nothing wrong.
"That’s not even how any of this works. You guys are just stressing her out because you all put too much money into a MEME COIN and she had no control over that or the price when people started to “cash out” and some lost money that way. She did nothing wrong," one person commented.
"Good for her and anyone who bought the coin deserves it," another user added.
Some netizens speculated whether the Hawk Tuah Girl would return once the scandal died down.
"I think she'll bounce back. This was pretty much the definition of "15 minutes of fame", but she handled it quite well and got a good team around her. Don't think we've seen the last of her just yet," one netizen posted.
"Probably she will come back when everyone forgets about her or there's another person taking yall attention away from her.." another person added.
Mark Cuban defended the Hawk Tuah Girl
Businessman and Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban defended Haliey Welch, aka the Hawk Tuah Girl, after she was accused of scamming people with her $HAWK coins. The billionaire, who appeared on the December 16 episode of Jules Terpak's podcast, said he felt bad for Welch as he believed she was stuck in an unfortunate position.
“It was obvious; it wasn’t, you know, intrinsic to her. It wasn’t something she fully understood, but she trusted the people around her. I’m not mad at Haliey at all. I feel bad for her that she got put in this position," he said.
He also claimed that people would move on from the situation and that the Hawk Tuah Girl would be fine, hoping she had learned from the mistakes. Cuban also explained his distaste for meme coins, calling them a “game of musical chairs with money.” Cuban appeared on Welch's Talk Tuah podcast on November 26, 2024.
Meanwhile, OverHere, the crypto site that sold the $HAWK coins, posted a thread on X on December 16 addressing the allegations and explaining the company's point of view. While the company initially dubbed the crash a FUD (crypto jargon for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt"), it explained in the new posts that the issues with the coin arose because of a person named Doc Hollywood.
OverHere accused the Hawk Tuah Girl and Hollywood of not being transparent. The company also absolved itself of all blame, claiming it had "no involvement" with the alleged scam.
"There have been posts speculating the sniper wallet has links to Doc's presale circle, as @coffeezilla raised on the now deleted spaces. overHere had: • No involvement • No prior knowledge of bad actor(s) • Nothing to gain Specifically: • Not our wallet • Not our access • Not at all in our control," the tweet read.
OverHere also acknowledged its mistakes, including trusting the wrong partners and not speaking up sooner. In its final tweet, it addressed Haliey Welch and asked her for transparency regarding the issue.
Haliey Welch gained fame as the Hawk Tuah Girl following a street interview earlier this year. Her success made the term "Hawk Tuah" enter the internet lexicon, and Welch gained popularity, leading to her starting her podcast Talk Tuah.
