You remember June 2024. That street interview clip in Nashville. One viral quip and suddenly Haliey Welch was the "Hawk Tuah Girl," the internet's newest obsession. For a few months, it was all fun and games. Podcasts, merchandise, appearances at major events—she was everywhere. Then came December.
On December 4, 2024, Welch launched her own cryptocurrency, the $HAWK token. It was supposed to be a "long-term community play." Instead, it turned into one of the fastest financial car crashes in the history of celebrity crypto. People called it the Hawk Tuah coin rug pull.
Some investors lost their life savings in literally fifteen minutes.
The 90-Minute Wipeout
When $HAWK went live on the Solana blockchain, the hype was massive. Within minutes, the market cap rocketed to nearly **$500 million**. If you were watching the charts, it looked like a moonshot. Then, the floor fell out.
The price cratered over 90% almost instantly.
It wasn't a slow decline. It was a cliff. One minute the token was the talk of the crypto world; the next, it was worth a fraction of a cent. While thousands of retail investors—regular people who followed Welch on TikTok and Instagram—watched their portfolios vanish, a few specific wallets were cashing out for millions.
Why People Are Calling It a Rug Pull
In crypto, a "rug pull" is basically an exit scam. The developers or insiders hype up a project, wait for the price to peak as the public buys in, and then suddenly dump their massive holdings or drain the liquidity.
💡 You might also like: Is Guitar Center Going Out of Business? Here is What’s Actually Happening Right Now
On-chain data for $HAWK told a pretty ugly story.
Independent investigators and blockchain analysts, including the well-known YouTube sleuth Coffeezilla, pointed out some massive red flags. Only about 3% to 4% of the total token supply was actually available for the public to buy at launch. The remaining 96%? Held in just a handful of insider wallets.
- Insider Dumping: Ten wallets controlled the vast majority of the supply.
- The "Doc Hollywood" Connection: OverHere, the Web3 platform Welch partnered with, eventually blamed Alex Larson Schultz (known as Doc Hollywood), claiming he controlled the token decisions and treasury.
- Pre-launch Access: Some investors alleged that "snipers" and insiders got access to the tokens before the general public could even hit the "buy" button.
Welch tried to defend the project during a chaotic X (formerly Twitter) Space. She claimed her team hadn't sold a single token. But the numbers didn't lie—someone with a lot of tokens was selling, and they were doing it fast. The community note on her post was brutal: it pointed out that while her "official" team might not have sold, the wallets they gave tokens to certainly did.
"I Probably Should Have Looked Into Him"
By early 2025, Welch was breaking down on her podcast. She looked exhausted. Honestly, she seemed just as confused as the people who lost money. She explained that she was brought into the project by a "friend of a friend" and was paid a $125,000 upfront fee for her likeness and marketing.
✨ Don't miss: Salary and tax calculator: Why your paycheck never looks like you expect
She claimed she didn't know how the "tokenomics" worked. Basically, she was the face of the brand, not the person behind the keyboard.
But for the people who lost $5,000 or $10,000, "I didn't know" felt like a weak excuse. A class-action lawsuit was filed in New York shortly after the crash. It accused the creators of $HAWK of running an unregistered securities offering and misleading the public.
The FBI even showed up at her grandmother's house. Welch later recalled her "Granny" calling her in a panic, thinking her granddaughter was going to prison.
The SEC and the Aftermath
Surprisingly, the legal heat cooled off faster than many expected. By March 2025, Welch’s legal team announced that the SEC had closed its investigation without filing any charges or sanctions against her personally.
Since she wasn't the technical architect or the person managing the smart contract, she largely escaped the legal "hook." The lawsuit against the "foundation" and the developers continued, but Welch was cleared to keep working. She eventually left her partnership with Jake Paul’s Betr and tried to pivot her brand back to entertainment and pop culture.
How to Protect Yourself Next Time
The Hawk Tuah coin rug pull isn't the first celebrity crypto disaster, and it won't be the last. From Floyd Mayweather to Kim Kardashian, the SEC has a long history of going after influencers who shill "pump and dump" schemes.
If you're thinking about buying the next viral meme coin, here is the hard truth you need to accept.
🔗 Read more: Professional Dress Code for Women: What Most People Get Wrong About Modern Offices
- Check the Supply Distribution: Use tools like Bubblemaps or DexScreener. If 90% of the coins are held by 10 people, you aren't an investor; you're the exit liquidity.
- Influencers Aren't Financial Advisors: Most celebrities are paid a flat fee to post a tweet. They don't care if the coin goes to zero because they already got their check.
- The "Friend of a Friend" Red Flag: If a creator can't explain the utility or the mechanics of the project beyond "we're building a community," it’s a gamble, not an investment.
- Realize Your Losses for Taxes: If you were caught in the $HAWK crash, you can't get your money back from the developers, but you can claim a capital loss on your taxes to offset other gains.
The $HAWK saga is a sobering reminder that viral fame doesn't translate to financial stability. One day you're the biggest meme on the planet, and the next, you're explaining to the FBI why your fans are broke.
If you lost money in the $HAWK launch, your best bet now is to monitor the progress of the ongoing class-action lawsuits. You can also file a formal complaint through the SEC's online portal to ensure your case is documented in their broader investigation into the project's developers.