Hawk Tuah Hailey Welch sued over $50m meme coin debacle

Viral internet influencer Hailey Welch, known for her “Hawk Tuah” interview, is facing a lawsuit after investors lost thousands of dollars on yet another failed celebrity Solana meme coin launch.

The “Hawk Tuah girl” may have to talk to the judge when she finally wakes up.

US law firm Burwick Law has filed a federal lawsuit against Hailey Welch and three others behind the uninspiring Hawk Tuah Solana meme coin, which was launched in early December.

Welch became a prominent social media influencer after a viral interview in which she described some close relationships. Months later, he and his team, Tuah the Moon Foundation, in partnership with OverHere Limited, Clinton So, and Alex Larson Schultz, also known as Doc Hollywood, released a meme coin styled after his popular “Hawk Tuah” phrase.

Like many famous Solana (SOL) launches, HAWK skyrocketed immediately after its launch, reaching a market cap of $500 million. Minutes later, the token dropped 90% and fell below $50 million. The token traded with a market cap of less than $8 million at the time of publication.

Angry investors and data providers quickly discovered that the HAWK token was highly clustered. Team wallets allegedly linked to Welch and other insiders held 96% of the cryptocurrency supply.

The controversy reached a new level when observers noticed that these wallets were selling off large amounts of HAWK’s supply, although Welch claimed that he and his team still had them.

Burwick Law encouraged HAWK buyers to lodge formal complaints with the firm amid the contentious process. The firm’s lawsuit named four defendants, including Welch, OverHere, So and Doc Hollywood, and named 12 U.S. residents as plaintiffs with collective damages of $151,000. Burwick has filed multiple lawsuits against celebrities for launching meme coins that allegedly turned into exit scams and gimmicks.

On December 17, two days before the federal lawsuit was filed, OverHere placed the blame on Doc Hollywood, claiming the organization had done nothing about the launch.

OverHere acknowledged that its silence was the wrong move and insisted that the company’s mistake was trusting the wrong partners. Doc Hollywood has locked the X account since the social media uproar and appears to have gone underground.

1/ Fact: We Developed Airdrop Technology for Free Only for Web2 Fans

we saw $HAWK As a perfect use case for our startup’s idea:

To bring airdrops to web2.

Hailey Welch launching a meme coin (literally a meme) felt like synchronicity.

Our goal was simple: to bring Web2 fans to Web3…

— OverHere (@overHere_gg) December 16, 2024

Hawk Tuah girl Welch has been MIA since attending the live X Spaces event on December 5th. Efforts to address the rug-pulling rumors have clashed with angry buyers demanding answers.

Welch said in response: “Anyway, I’m going to bed tomorrow and I’ll see you.” Fourteen days later, Welch is still unavailable and requests for comment sent to his team have gone unanswered.