Fraud or just another influencer-led meme coin gone bad? That’s the painful question investors are facing in the aftermath of the HAWK meme coin two days ago.
But did Haliey Welch and her team pull a classic rug pull, or was this simply the impact of FUD hitting a volatile meme coin?
Either way, the HAWK story is another lesson in how to avoid crypto scams, while Flockerz (FLOCK) shows the way forward for well-researched meme coin projects.
A Meme Coin Fit for a Queen
Haliey Welch, widely recognized as the ‘Hawk Tuah Girl,’ became an internet celebrity in 2024. She’s become a significant crypto supporter, buying DOGE and generally becoming a meme coin fan.
So it wasn’t a surprise when the self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Memes’ made plans to launch her own meme coin.
Dubbed HAWK, the token launched on December 4, 2024, via the Solana blockchain through OverHere.
HAWK Collapses Spectacularly
The cryptocurrency experienced an initial surge, reaching a market capitalization of $500M, but swiftly plummeted by over 95% under steady selling pressure.
Eventually, the market cap stabilized and currently sits at $31M, according to CoinMarketCap.
What happened?
This rapid decline led to allegations of a ‘pump-and-dump’ scheme, where insiders inflate an asset’s value through promotion and then sell off holdings for profit, leaving other investors with losses.
Welch denied these claims, stating on social media that her team hadn’t sold any tokens and had implemented high initial fees to deter early traders from manipulating the launch.
Most investors found those claims questionable, at best. Blockchain explorers demonstrated huge concentrations of tokens being held in and then sold from a small number of wallets. Info from Bubblemaps.io shows just how significant the concentrations were, with one wallet controlling over 15% of the supply.
Once the selling began, token prices crashed, and the bottom fell out of the impressive market cap.
And it didn’t take long for investors to report significant financial losses, with some claiming to have invested life savings or children’s college funds.
The incident raised questions about Welch’s credibility.
HAWK Investors Likely New to Crypto
Analysts such as Coffeezilla on YouTube pointed out that many of Welch’s fans and possible HAWK investors were likely new to crypto. They may not have realized the importance of doing research instead of just following the advice of a young, newly-famous influencer.
Among the red flags for the HAWK token:
- No formal whitepaper, shy of a few short GitHub entries
- 20% of tokens to founders, with no vesting period
The end result was that a fifth of the total tokens were available to be sold immediately, and only 3% of tokens were allocated to the public. The whole process lacked the necessary transparency.
Talk online quickly turned to fraud and legal prosecution.
Meme Coin Investors: Look for Well-Vetted Projects
The launch of Haliey Welch’s HAWK meme coin resulted in a brief valuation peak followed by a sharp decline, leading to investor losses and accusations of fraudulent activity, which Welch disputes.
It also highlights how important it is for investors to choose projects with as much info as possible. For projects like Flockerz, that means roadmaps, community governance, info on tokenomics, and details on staking, vesting periods, and more.
In crypto, knowledge is power. Haliey Welch may not have done her own research – or maybe she did. Either way, the HAWK launch quickly fell into a rug pull.
Don’t fall for the next HAWK. When investing in meme coins, do your own research to find the best upcoming projects.
References
- The Official Hawk Tuah Token Debuts on overHere (OverHere)
- Exposing the Hawk Tuah Scam (YouTube)
- Hawk Tuah Token Transactions (Bubblemaps)
- The Official Hawk Tuah Token (GitBook)
