Popular Internet personality Hawk Tuah girl’s cryptocurrency launch has drawn widespread allegations of fraud
Hailey Welch, or as you may have heard about her – “Hawk Tuah girl” has found herself in fresh controversy after the overnight Internet celebrity has been accused of pulling the rug on investors.
Streamers Target Hawk Tuah Girl over Failed Crypto Token Launch
For context, Welch launched her meme coin, $HAWK, which hit a staggering valuation of $500 million in mere hours, only to lose most of this in a major sell-off that ended up plummeting the value of the token to just $60 million.
Online sleuths have been quick to level accusations that it was Welch who actually orchestrated the sale-off, cashing in on the huge payout the token’s temporary valuation had achieved. Apart from widespread criticism from ordinary netizens, Welch has been criticized by prominent streamers such as xQc who called $HAWK nothing short of fraud.
MoistCr1TiKaL, another streamer, delved into the controversy in a video and explained what the nature of meme coins was – it’s a joke for me, but a loss for you. Meme coins, MoistCr1TiKaL argued could be fun for their creators – sort of jokes – but they just end up “f**ing everyone else, it’s just a fraud”
xQc did not feel much compassion for the people who had ended up paying for the $HAWK token. According to the controversial streamer who went from an Overwatch player to a full-time online casino slot player, people who bought the tokens deserved to be scammed.
Welch’s team commented that the project was not a rug pull and that much of the issues with the project’s valuation had to do with associated costs. At one point, a member of the Hawk Tuah’s team said that it costs money to “create a foundation in the Cayman Islands.”
This prompted another streamer, Asmongold to voice his concerns about the supposed rug pull, but similarly – about the argument that Welch’s team has offered. “It’s like,” Asmongold mused, “robbing a bank and be like – did you see how expensive the f**king getaway car is?!”
Accusations of Fraud and Pump-and-Dump Scheme Persist
As of the time of writing, the value of the $HAWK token has crashed by more than 95%, mere hours after it launched, wiping out retail investors who had pinned their hopes on the token.
The crash has led to widespread accusations of a pump-and-dump scheme, a popular fraudulent undertaking in the crypto industry whereby the hosts of a project hype their tokens, but then immediately sell them off in large volumes, causing the entire project to come down crashing.
Apart from streamers blasting Welch, there were also others, such as Coffeezilla, a YouTuber who has been fighting against fraudulent crypto projects and not backing in the face of threats and pressure.
“This is one of the most miserable, horrible launches I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. Although Coffeezilla acknowledged that Welch herself may be used to advertise a project that she does not fully grasp, much of the culpability rested with her.
