Named Hawk Tuah from a viral video that went crazy, Haliey Welch has seen the ups and downs of stardom. While the internet has launched many a meme into orbit, few have flamed out quite as spectacularly as her crypto career. Spoiler alert: she’s okay now. But let’s take a look at how a factory worker from Tennessee rode a meme to meme-coin disaster, and why she’s still standing.
After her viral moment shook TikTok, Haliey did what any viral sensation might do. She leaned into it. She launched a podcast, grabbed some endorsement deals, and then, somehow, found herself jumping into the world of cryptocurrency. That’s when $HAWK was born.
On December 4, 2024, Welch’s meme-coin officially launched on the Solana blockchain, with nothing but a bird name, a lot of hype, and dreams of moon landings. And moon it did, at least for a moment. Within hours, the coin skyrocketed to anearly $490 million market cap. Not bad for a coin with absolutely zero utility other than vibes.
But by the next day? Crashed. Like, “I lost my kid’s college fund and my dog won’t look me in the eye anymore” crashed. The value plummeted by over 90%, settling somewhere between a sad $25–60 million. Redditors cried foul. X users screamed “rug pull.” And Haliey? Well, she went radio silent.
Haliey Welch – Influence for Good! We know her story but look what she’s doing with it. I can only applaud… #fun#influencer#celebrity#viralvideo#fyp Photos courtesy of Haliey Welch: https://www.instagram.com/hay_welch/
Before December, I had no idea that a coin was in development. I was watching her rise, writing about her, putting videos together about her, and still had no clue there was a crypto in the making. When I finally heard the news, I smelled trolls all over it.
Hawk Tuah was a brand. Trolls who have nothing better to do than take advantage of others came along and talked her into putting her brand on a coin she knew nothing about. In fact, creating the coin takes a level of coding proficiency to make happen. Doing a rug pull takes a really high level of understanding the world of finance and the marketplace. Not only that, orchestrating a rug pull is like flying a plane, which means you have to understand the physics of the wind in order to stay up there.
I don’t know Haliey. But I was quite sure that her knowledge of crypto and finance was not on the level it needed to be to mastermind such a trick. Plus, it just didn’t make sense. Why would someone put their name on a coin only to rip people off a day after it launched?
Scam artists and trolls keep themselves anonymous. You don’t see anyone else’s name on that coin, do you? That’s because those trolls taking advantage of her and trying to get rich while destroying her name weren’t about to come out of the shadows and expose themselves. But they were fine with letting her hold the bag.
Things got serious when the FBI showed up at her grandmother’s house the very next day. Yep. They knocked on the door, asked for her phone, and later interviewed her in Nashville. As far as worst-possible-follow-ups to internet fame go, that one’s up there.
To her credit, Welch cooperated fully. The SEC and FBI launched an investigation, and after months of poking around in her DMs and wallet history, both agencies cleared her of wrongdoing. No charges. No sanctions. Just a very expensive lesson and some PR cleanup.
According to Welch, she made nothing off the coin’s price surge, just a small marketing fee that she says was immediately swallowed up by legal costs and damage control. In other words, she barely broke even on the most chaotic get-rich-quick scheme of 2024.
Welch eventually resurfaced in April 2025, relaunching her podcast, Talk Tuah, and addressing the elephant in the blockchain.
“I couldn’t tell you how crypto worked,” she admitted. “I got talked into it, and I trusted the wrong people.”
via Brittany Bell
And honestly? That tracks. Welch has always been more Bud Light than Bitcoin, more trucker hat than tech startup. The crypto thing wasn’t her lane. She just got handed the keys and told it was a Lambo.
She says she’s cut ties with everyone involved in $HAWK and won’t be dabbling in crypto again. Which, all things considered, might be the smartest investment decision she’s made yet.
Meanwhile, back in the Eastern District of New York, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the people behind the $HAWK coin. Welch wasn’t named in the suit, but the complaint laid out what most investors already suspected. The coin was promoted as a joke, spiked in value, and left a lot of people holding the digital bag. It’s worth noting again, because lawyers get twitchy about this stuff, Haliey Welch was never charged with a crime and remains free to “hawk tuah” on mic as much as she pleases.
Welch is now in rebuilding mode, and she seems to be doing just fine. She’s ended her media partnership with Betr Holdings and is steering her podcast independently. There’s even a documentary in the works by Bungalow Media & Entertainment that promises to go behind the scenes of her rise, fall, and second act.
Will she ever reach $490 million again? Doubtful. But will she continue to live rent-free in our cultural lexicon for at least the next fiscal quarter? Absolutely.
In fact, if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that authenticity and a well-timed spit joke go a long way. Welch may have stumbled hard in the crypto world, but she’s bounced back the same way she entered our lives, full force, Southern charm, and just the right mix of chaos and charisma.
So here’s to the bounce back. And here’s hoping she sticks to the kind of Hawk Tuah that made her famous in the first place, the viral kind, not the volatile kind.
The Hawk Tuah class‐action lawsuit, Albouni et al. v. Schultz et al., filed on December 19, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, named the following defendants:
Troll #1 – Tuah The Moon Foundation (a Cayman Islands‑registered entity), alleged to have handled token sales and fund flows.
Troll #2 – overHere Limited, a Hong Kong–based Web3 launchpad and token arranger.
Troll #3 – Clinton So, the founder and key executive of overHere Limited.
Troll #4 – Alex Larson Schultz, also known as “Doc Hollywood,” an influencer who promoted the $HAWK token online and hosted related discussions.
Any one of you celebrities or influencers see these guys coming with their bright ideas and lofty ambitions, slam the door and lock it. Then, lock it again!
