A lot of people were eager to invest a lot of money in something called Hawk Tuah Coin last night.
And in news that’s unlikely to astonish you, a lot of those people lost a lot of that money.
Let’s rewind a bit to examine how we got to this point.
The Hawk Tuah Saga: A Tale of 15 Minutes
As you’re probably aware, Haliey Welch, the so-called “Hawk Tuah Girl” became the unexpected viral sensation of the summer thanks to an off-hand remark she made to one of those YouTubers who interviews random people on the street.
Haliey said “hawk tuah” (we’d explain that particular onomatopoeia, but this is a family site!), and a new meme was born.
From there, she did the impossible and parlayed her moment of internet fame into an actual career.
These days, she hosts a popular podcast and boasts 2.6 million followers on Instagram.
But with her latest venture, she who once spat on that thang may have flown too close to the sun.
Hawk Tuah Coin: What Is It, and Why Has It Pissed So Many People Off?
On Wednesday, Haliey launched $HAWK, a memecoin supported by the Solana blockchain platform.
The new coin was heavily hyped in the days ahead of its release, and things got off to a promising start, with an initial surge of a whopping $500 million.
But within 20 minutes, Hawk Tuah Coin had plummeted to just $60 million, according to Bitcoinist.
That’s bad news for investors, and it could spell trouble for Haliey, who now has a lot of very pissed-off crypto bros demanding answers.
The Anti-Hawk Tuah Backlash: Divest From That Thang!
Furious investors are now accusing Haliey of orchestrating a scam, and some are even going so far as to demand that she be arrested.
While that seems unlikely, some of the suspicions are not without merit.
Haliey took to X (formerly Twitter) to clarify the situation and absolve herself of blame by pointing out that no one on her team has profited from this situation.
But the community notes on the tweet pointed out that Haliey’s comments (which, she admitted, were copied and pasted from a different source) were not entirely accurate:
“The ‘team’ and insiders have actually been selling their token since launch,” the notes read.
“A majority have never purchased anything and have only sold the tokens they were given.Hailey is lying and will likely have to ‘talk tuah’ judge about this.”
Well, at least the crypto bros have maintained their sense of humor about this situation!
We’ll have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.