The woman behind a viral meme has had to come forward and say she was cooperating with lawyers over her memecoin.
Haliey Welch went viral after she used the term “hawk tuah” to describe a sex act in an “on the street” style interview outside of a nightclub.
Since then, Welch has done everything she could to capitalize on that fame — including launching a social media career, starting a podcast and making festival appearances.
Her latest bid was a form of memecoin.
Hawkcoin, trading under $HAWK, hit a peak total market value of $490 million soon after launch on December 4 but a major sell-off saw that drop to $26.4 million.
Soon after, Welch faced backlash and scrutiny over her cryptocurrency.
The 22-year-old has just spoken out, saying she is cooperating with lawyers to get the matter resolved.
“I take this situation extremely seriously and want to address my fans, the investors who have been affected, and the broader community,” Welch said.
“I am fully cooperating with and am committed to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter,” Welch added. “If you have experienced losses related to this, please contact Burwick Law.”
Earlier this month Burwick Law put up a post trying to find people who had been impacted by the memecoin.
Some suggested the cryptocurrency was used as a pump-and-dump scheme – or artificially inflating value before quickly selling for profit.
Coin Telegraph, a news website covering crypto markets, reported data from platforms Bubblemaps and Dexscreener that a mix of insider wallets and “snipers” controlled between 80 to 90 percent of $HAWK’s supply at launch.
Snipers are entities that buy up large amounts of a token’s supply at launch before selling at a profit.
One buyer’s wallet sniped HAWK seconds after its launch, purchasing 17.5 percent of the supply of the memecoin for the equivalent of $993,000.
Coin Telegraph reported that they proceeded to sell 135.8 million tokens for a profit of $1.3 million.
Welch’s recent statement came after she took to social media to deny any wrongdoing when backlash against the coin first began to emerge.
“Team hasn’t sold one token and not 1 KOL was given 1 free token,” she wrote in a post on X. “We tried to stop snipers as best we could through high fees in the start of launch on Meteora.”
She previously told Fortune that her memecoin – so-named due to being based on pop culture – was “not just a cash grab”.
