Viral social media star Haliey Welch says she had no clue how cryptocurrency worked before launching her Hawk Tuah crypto meme coin. The woman behind the “hawk-tuah” meme spoke on her podcast this week about the incident surrounding the crypto project for the first time publicly.
“I couldn’t tell you how crypto worked the day that coin launched,” she said on her podcast Talking Tuah. “I had no idea…so that screwed me.”
After her meteoric rise to celebrity, Welch launched her “Hawk Tuah” meme coin on Solana. The self-titled cryptocurrency token is the source of a lawsuit filed on December 19th, as lawyers noted the legal action “arises from the unlawful promotion and sale of the Hawk Tuah cryptocurrency meme coin, known as the ‘$HAWK token.”
“I got paid a marketing fee,” Welch added on her podcast. “That’s all I made. I did not make a dime from the coin itself.” She also told followers she feels bad for anyone who got scammed.
“It makes me feel really bad that they trusted me, and I led them to something that I did not have enough knowledge about. I did not have enough knowledge about crypto to be getting involved with it. And I knew that, but I got talked into it, and I trusted the wrong people.”
-Haliey Welch via Talking Tuah Podcast
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The HAWK meme coin ended up crashing by 95% hours after launch, with some suggesting the meme coin was a rug-pull ploy. The coin reached a market capitalization of nearly $500 million before plummeting to $25 million. Investors lost thousands of dollars after investing in the coin and sending its value surging before it crashed. Back in March, Welch did say that the SEC closed its investigation into her and the meme coin. She also reportedly parted ways with the LLC behind the coin, deciding not to support or promote it going forward.
Similar incidents have happened with popular celebrities in the past, notably in the NFT realm. From Robert Gronkowski to Logan Paul, the crypto industry has had mixed results when involving some of Hollywood’s A-list. Welch shortly disappeared from social media after launching the Hawk Tuah meme coin and her podcast Talk Tuah.” TMZ even reported that there’s a Hawk Tuah documentary in the works.