It began as a slogan on social media, progressed to a marketing potential, and ultimately became a cryptocurrency.
The social media star who gave a new digital coin her viral hawk moment is now at the center of the most recent scandal surrounding cryptocurrency and what some are describing as an all-too-familiar scam designed to defraud people of their money.
following its price crashed, influencer Hailey Welch, who became well-known online this year following a particularly viral interview clip, is denying claims that HAWK, the cryptocurrency she helped establish this week, is a hoax. Welch stated on X that neither she nor the coin’s creators have sold any of their assets.
DEX Screener, a platform that tracks the price, trading volume, and on-chain transactions of different tokens, reports that the coin’s market value was under $28 million as of Thursday afternoon, down from a peak of nearly $500 million on Wednesday.
Crypto journalist and YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, also known as Coffeezilla, has millions of social media followers. On Wednesday, he addressed Welchin in a live X Space audio conversation called The Hawk Truth. In screenshots of the discussion that went viral on X, Welch’s team refuted Findeisen’s claims of rug pulling, a term used in the cryptocurrency industry to describe schemes where the creators of a coin try to create excitement and raise its price in order to sell their holdings at a profit, leaving other investors with depreciated tokens after prices plummet.
In an email to NBC News, Findeisen stated that influencers must understand that meme coins are not amusing when they harm your audience.
The market cap volatility was attributed by Welch’s team to snipers bots, which are designed to purchase tokens as soon as they are launched and sell them as prices rise.
Welch stated in an X post on Thursday that her company hasn’t sold a single token and that no important people or major opinion leaders who helped create interest about the coin received free tokens. They also implemented exorbitant fees, which have since been removed, in an attempt to deter snipers, she claimed.
A request for comment on Thursday was not immediately answered by Welch’s representatives.
The introduction of Welch’s coin coincides with a rebirth in cryptocurrency, primarily due to the skyrocketing price of Bitcoin, which just crossed the $100,000 mark for the first time. Donald Trump’s endorsement of cryptocurrency as president-elect has also given the sector fresh life.
After months of building her brand, Welch jumped into the cryptocurrency boom. The 22-year-old has capitalized on her notoriety since her interview went viral in June by releasing her AI dating assistant app Pookie Tools, Hawk Tuah-themed merchandise, and her podcast Talk Tuah.
Welch has promoted the introduction of HAWK in a number of posts throughout X this week. She claimed in an interview with Fortune that she had believed cryptocurrency to be nothing more than a fraud and a simple method to lose money. However, she claimed that after going to a number of Bitcoin conferences, she started to see it as a useful tool for communicating with fans.
However, the price of HAWK fell precipitously within hours of its Wednesday introduction on the Solana blockchain, drawing harsh condemnation from cryptocurrency dealers and some online users who claimed to have invested in the memecoin.
Memecoins are cryptocurrencies that were influenced by internet memes, such DOGE (named after the famous doge meme) and MOODENG (named after the viral baby pygmy hippo). Due in significant part to the hype created by social media trends, such as when Elon Musk and Mark Cuban’s support of DOGE triggered sharp price swings, their success in the market might be erratic.
However, some memecoins have actively sought controversy.Investors notoriously accused SQUID, a memecoin based on the popular Netflix series Squid Game, of being a rug pull in 2021 after the project’s unidentified developers vanished after cashing out and causing the currency’s price to plummet. Celebrities who have promoted cryptocurrency without disclosing their financial motivations have also come under fire and been sued.
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