Viral TikTok Star, “Hawk Tuah Girl,” Speaks Up on the Fraudulent Meme-Coin Financial Losses

The host, alleging being among the victims from whom a quantity of money was taken, announced that she would “continue to work with the firm.”

Haliey Welch, the social media influencer and podcaster known for awakening mass attention some weeks ago owing to her controversial “Hawk Tuah” motto, broke her silence over weeks after its cryptocurrency memecoin went multimillion-dollar down the drain.

Welch wrote, “I take this matter extremely seriously and want to speak in particular to my fans, all investors who have been affected, and the general community” on X.

“I am fully cooperating with and dedicated to supporting the legal team representing those who have been impacted. My goal is to help uncover the truth, ensure those responsible are held accountable, and see this matter resolved,” she continued, directing her followers to a law firm currently pursuing legal action regarding the cryptocurrency.

Her last public statement was made on the day of launching her $HAWK cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain, December 4. In a late-night session on X Spaces, the cryptocurrency had reportedly jumped to a market capitalization of $490 million before crashing down 95 percent minutes later. The same day, responding to allegations of insider trading on X, she stated that her “team hasn’t sold one token.”

Critics, however, claimed that “snipers” – those are entities that quickly acquire huge amounts of a token just after its launch – were behind the price plummet and owned nearly the entire supply of the coin. Cointelegraph states that from one digital wallet, almost 20 percent of the $HAWK supply was bought and then sold shortly after for a profit of $1.3 million just two hours later.

The investors who bought the $HAWK coin filed a lawsuit against the developers on Thursday in a federal court in New York. The suit seeks damages in excess of $150,000, asserting that the investors lost thousands of dollars because the coin, they allege, was an unregistered and hence illegal security.

In the suit, it is averred that Welch’s “substantial social media following” was exploited to “market the Token as a revolutionary cryptocurrency project” while allegedly trying to “avoid American securities laws.” It is also asserted on behalf of the plaintiffs that the creators have made “no real effort at all to limit purchasers” to persons outside the United States, thereby creating a “speculative frenzy.”

The suit names overHere Ltd., a Web3 platform that assisted with the launch of the coin; Clinton So, founder of overHere; the Tuah the Moon Foundation, which is said to have sold some of the coins; and musician and cryptocurrency promoter, Alex Larson Schultz.

Though Welch is not a direct party in the suit, she did substantial promotion for the coin offering on her social media and discussed it on a podcast episode with billionaire investor Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban, of late, has come public to defend Welch.

“It was something she didn’t quite understand fully,” he made the statement during a podcast interview with tech journalist Jules Terpak. “What she really did was trust those around her.”

Both overHere and Clinton So have denied any wrongdoing and defended Welch.

A spokesperson for overHere told The Daily Mail on Thursday, “We have always been fully transparent about the very limited nature and scope of our involvement in the Hawk Tuah token project and strongly believe that we acted appropriately.”

“Halie’s team has sold absolutely no tokens,” the company contended via X on December 4. “Halie’s team holds a 10% allocation, which is locked for one year and vests over three years.”

According to them, they also didn’t make “any money at all from the launch” and were “not paid any fees.”

The suit states that the overHere team founded the Tuah the Moon Foundation, whose name is a direct reference to Welch’s popularity and the cryptocurrency term for an asset going up really fast in value.

According to the lawsuit, the founding of the said foundation was to liquidate a 17 percent allocation of the $HAWK tokens. The lawsuit added that the foundation controlled a digital wallet that received fees from token transactions, amounting to around $3 million.

In a tweet, overHere blamed Alex Larson Schultz, calling him “Doc Hollywood,” saying that “he controlled all token decisions, fees, treasury” and that “Doc’s team vanished when the troubles came.”