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Influencer Haliey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah” girl, has launched her latest attempt to cash in on her fame: a cryptocurrency.
On Wednesday, Welch launched the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) meme coin on the Solana (SOL+1.72%) blockchain, which she told Fortune ahead of the debut, “is not a cash grab.” Memecoins, like HAWK, are cryptocurrencies that are based on viral memes, trends, and pop culture references, such as Dogecoin and Pepecoin.
“We don’t want to break securities laws,” Welch’s manager, Jonnie Forster, told Fortune. “We would say that we’re almost, like, tokenizing, in a sense, Hailey’s fan base.”
However, within 24 hours of the launch, social media users claimed to have filed complaints with securities regulators, at least one law firm started reaching out to gather clients, and the meme coin was being labeled a scam by critics.
The meme coin rose to a peak market capitalization of $490 million before plummeting, hitting $29.1 million at the time of publication, according to DexScreener data. That’s a roughly 94% decline.
As earlier reported by Cointelegraph, between 80% and 90% of the token’s supply was controlled by a combination of insider wallets and snipers, or entities that buy up large amounts of supply when a token is launched. One wallet bought 17.5% of the memecoin’s supply for about $993,000 at launch, later selling 135.8 million tokens for a $1.3 million profit within two hours.
Welch’s team has said they haven’t sold any tokens and that no key opinion leaders had been given free tokens, adding that they “tried to stop snipers as best we could” through high initial fees.
Since going viral in June thanks to a video posted to YouTube by creators Tim Dickerson and DeArius Marlow, Welch has founded a company, hired an agent, and began selling merchandise and making paid appearances. In August, she started a podcast called “Talk Tuah,” followed by an artificial-intelligence-powered dating advice app she launched in November named “Pookie Tools.”