Hawk Tuah Girl breaks silence on lawsuit against crypto partners

First comes the fame, then the cryptocurrency – then the lawsuit.

Haliey Welch, a Tennessee native who was launched to Internet stardom this summer thanks to a street interview in which she pantomimed spitting during oral sex (and thus earned the onomatopoeic nickname “Hawk Tuah Girl”), managed the rare feat to remain in the spotlight for months after her viral outbreak. She founded one animal charitywho amassed millions of followers on social media, went to the top of the charts with his podcast Tal Tuahand even threw out the opening pitch at a Mets game. She was America’s sweetheart, and it looked like she was here to stay.

But earlier this month, disaster struck when Welch released $HAWK, a cryptocurrency based on her valuable personal brand. Such cryptoassets, known as “meme coins,” are known as volatile investments and tend to trade according to the boom-and-bust cycles of the online phenomena that inspire them. Welch’s coin, developed by partners who run a fund out of the Cayman Islands, soared in value when it debuted only to crater within hours, plummeting more than 90 percent from a market cap of nearly $500 million to less than $30 million.

Welch and her partners — Alex Larson Schultz, who goes by “Doc Hollywood” online, and Clinton So, whose platform overHere made the $HAWK offering — held an audio Spaces event on X (formerly Twitter) that evening to address allegations of a scam. They faced tough questions from investors in the crypto scene and Stephen Findeisen, the YouTuber known for investigating crypto scams under the handle Coffeezilla. Welch himself was almost completely silent in the hour-long conversation as Schultz and then repeatedly refused to coordinate a pump-and-dump or “carpet pull” scheme in which a cluster of wallets that originally held the vast majority of the overhyped $HAWK , it unloaded. in a coordinated manner, leaving other investors with a worthless asset.

The call came to an abrupt end when Welch interrupted to say she was going to bed, a sign that quickly became part of her meme lorein part because she then disappeared from public view. No new episodes of Tal Tuah was released and Welch’s social media accounts went dark. Crypto traders excitedly speculated that Welch could be in serious legal trouble, joking that she would go straight to “tuah” jail or at least “speak tuah” judge. At least one investor filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It took two weeks for Welch to address the failure again. On Friday, she wrote a post on X and acknowledged that a class action was in motion. But the suit only names Schultz and So, along with OverHere and the Caymans-based Tuah the Moon Foundation. “I take this situation extremely seriously and want to reach out to my fans, the investors who have been affected and the wider community,” Welch wrote. “I am fully cooperating with and committed to assisting the legal team representing the affected individuals, as well as helping to uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this case.” She advised those who had lost money on $HAWK to get in touch Burwick’s Lawthe firm that brought the case against Schultz and So advertised its services on X immediately after the coin crash.

The case includes a dozen plaintiffs who claim to have lost more than $150,000. It is alleged that the defendants “exploited Welch’s celebrity status and connections” and “created a speculative frenzy” to drive up the coin’s price when trading began and lure “first-time cryptocurrency participants” who were attracted to the project as fans of Welch. The complaint alleges that Schultz and So violated securities laws and even indicated their efforts to circumvent those laws on Space’s call. It also notes that $HAWK was never registered with the SEC.

The choice to go after Welch’s collaborators rather than the self-described “Queen. of Memes” herself suggests what many observers have already assumed: that she played no meaningful role in how $HAWK was conceived or distributed, merely serving as a face to market the token. As Coffeezilla reported, Welch had received an upfront payment of $125,000 to promote the coin to her community, along with 50 percent of the net trading proceeds after operating costs paid to third parties.This is in addition to owning 10 percent of the whole The $HAWK supply she can’t sell for a year Whether those efforts will amount to anything is anyone’s guess.

The nature of Welch’s collaboration with Burwick Law is also unclear, but presumably she has a digital paper trail to prove that she was deceived or misadvised by her crypto partners – if indeed that is the case. Such material is likely to bolster the lawsuit’s allegations of securities violations.

So far, it looks like Welch has hit the ground running and may even get to keep his sponsorship fee for participating in the $HAWK disaster. As for whether she can get her influencer career back on track, well, she wouldn’t be the first to manage a big crypto scandal — just don’t expect her to talk about it if and when her podcast returns. Curiously, Welch’s first public statement since she logged out of the controversial Spaces call in early December boosted the price of $HAWK, briefly giving it a market cap of over $20 million before its value plummeted again. The coin is currently worth less than $0.002, but people are still buying and selling it. Further proof that some people in the blockchain economy just can’t resist the long shot.