'Hawk Tuah girl' has found herself caught up in a cryptocurrency scandal over the last few months, and while at the start she was vocal about the situation, there's been radio silence ever since.
Haliey Welch rose to fame in June 2024 following a street interview where she coined the phrase 'hawk tuah spit on that thang', and months later, her popularity saw a team of crypto experts get in touch and eventually bring out her own meme coin, named '$HAWK token'.
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Speaking during a leaked podcast episode with YouTuber FaZe Banks, she spoke about the alleged cryptocurrency scam as she broke down in tears.
But first, let's quickly run through what the scandal entails.
In the space of less than 20 minutes on December 4, her cryptocurrency meme coin plummeted by just shy of $450 million.
Fans claimed they had lost their entire life savings in less than the amount of time it takes to watch an episode of The Simpsons, as Haliey Welch and the creators behind her '$HAWK token' have been accused of coordinating a 'rug pull'.
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The term is used to describe the process where creators of cryptocurrency sell off their stock, leading to prices crashing, and those who put money into it are left with coins worth next to nothing.
The value of Welch's cryptocurrency plummeted from as much as $490 million to just $41 million - with some news outlets even claiming it lost more than 95 percent of its value in the one day it was released.
Now, speaking on the podcast, Welch said: "I want to start by saying thank you to all my true fans and all the people that actually watch my stuff and they keep up with me. We're trying to sort out all the pieces and stuff to, like, get all this figured out and make everything right. Oh my God, I'm gonna cry."
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Banks replied: "Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry."
Welch continued: "Well, so basically how this idea got brought to me, it was supposed to be, like, a more, they call it a long term coin. And the guy that ran the account, he was like, 'Oh, we're gonna change, like, the way everybody thinks of crypto'.
"Crypto is gonna be a good place. And I feel really bad for all the people that got affected by it, and it just didn't go the way I planned. And all the money out of this episode is getting donated to all the animals that have been affected by the fires up here."
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Since the leak, Banks has slammed Welch's team publicly.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote in part: "These incompetent r*****s leaked and/ or inside traded the token. We noticed a random spike in volume on the coin 2/2 along with random messages asking us if we did the podcast. Very clearly her team was not as solid as they claimed to be. They completely blew it and we called the episode off right then and there.
"Now today, the episode 'randomly' gets leaked. The price of $HAWK is pumping and they completely f***ing fumbled the bag, yet again. What a f***ing mess. Poor girl, it’s a wonder how she found herself in this position in the first place.
"Now @HalieyWelchX I’m going to speak to you direct and say the exact same thing I said to you on spaces that night. Fire everybody, your teams f***ing r*****ed."
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UNILAD has contacted Haliey Welch's representatives for comment.
Topics: Cryptocurrency, Hawk Tuah girl, Social Media
Joe Yates