Social Media Star Haliey Welch Breaks Her Silence After the Multimillion-Dollar Collapse of a Hawk Tuah-Themed Cryptocurrency Memecoin

Social media star and podcaster Haliey Welch, who rose to viral fame in June for her raunchy “Hawk Tuah” catchphrase, has spoken out for the first time in weeks

Social media star and podcaster Haliey Welch has finally broken her silence regarding the multimillion-dollar collapse of a Hawk Tuah-themed cryptocurrency memecoin, which occurred several weeks ago.

In a statement posted on X, Welch addressed her fans, the impacted investors, and the broader community for the first time since the incident.

“I take this situation extremely seriously,” Welch wrote. “I am fully cooperating with and am committed to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter.”

She concluded the statement by directing her followers to a law firm currently handling a lawsuit over the coin.

Welch's last public statement on the matter came during a late-night X Spaces audio stream on the day of the coin's launch. The $HAWK coin, which was launched on the Solana blockchain on December 4, reportedly surged to a $490 million market capitalization before crashing 95 percent within minutes.

On that day, Welch defended herself against allegations of insider trading, writing on X that her “team hasn’t sold one token.”

Critics alleged that snipers, entities that snap up large amounts of a token supply at launch, caused the price drop and held nearly all of the coin's supply. According to Cointelegraph, a single wallet managed to buy nearly 20 percent of $HAWK's supply and flip it for a $1.3 million profit two hours later.

On Thursday, investors in the coin filed a lawsuit against $HAWK's creators in New York federal court, seeking over $150,000 in damages and alleging they lost thousands on the coin, which they claimed was an illegal unregistered security.

The suit accuses the coin of using Welch's “extensive social media following” to “market the Token as a groundbreaking cryptocurrency project,” while attempting to “skirt the American securities laws” and making “no serious attempt to restrict purchasers” to buyers outside the U.S., creating a “speculative frenzy.”

The suit names overHere Ltd., a Web3 crypto launchpad platform that helped facilitate the sale; Clinton So, the company's founder; the Tuah the Moon Foundation, an entity that allegedly sold an allocation of coins; and Alex Larson Schultz, a musician and crypto promoter.

While Welch herself is not a named defendant, she heavily promoted the coin offering on social media and discussed it on her podcast during an episode with billionaire investor Mark Cuban.

In recent days, Cuban has come to Welch's defense.

“It wasn’t something she fully understood,” Cuban said during a podcast with tech journalist Jules Terpak. “But she trusted the people around her.”

Both overHere and So have denied wrongdoing and defended Welch.

“We have been extremely transparent about the limited scope and extent of our involvement in the Hawk Tuah token project. We are confident that we have done nothing wrong,” a spokesperson for overHere told The Daily Mail on Thursday.

On December 4, the company wrote on X, “Haliey’s Team has sold absolutely no tokens whatsoever. Haliey’s Team has 10% allocation which is locked for 1 year and vested over 3 years.”

The company has also stated that it took “zero fees” and “zero profit” during the launch.

According to the suit, overHere created the Tuah the Moon Foundation, its name referencing Welch's fame and the crypto slang for an asset increasing greatly in value (going “to the moon”). The suit alleges that overHere used the foundation to sell a 17 percent allocation of the $HAWK tokens.

The suit also alleges that the foundation controlled a wallet that collected fees on token transactions, amassing approximately $3 million.

In a tweet, overHere blamed Schultz, who goes by the moniker Doc Hollywood, for the incident, claiming that “Doc controlled all token decisions, fees, treasury” and that “Doc’s team vanished when things got hard.”

The Independent has reached out to Schultz for comment.