‘Hawk Tuah’ girl breaks silence on meme coin scandal, claims she was misled

‘Hawk Tuah’ girl Hailey Welch posted a new episode on her podcast on Thursday, finally talking about her meme coin crash, before taking down the video on her Youtube channel shortly after.

On her podcast, Welch claimed that she was led to believe that her token would have long-term viability and a positive impact on the crypto industry, which sadly was not the case.

‘Hawk Tuah’ girl says meme coin deployers persuaded her to launch the token

On the latest episode of her podcast, Welch sat down with podcaster and CEO of gaming organization FaZe Clan, FaZe Banks, describing her experience when she first agreed to launch the Hawk Tuah token

According to Welch, the idea of a meme coin did not appeal to her at first since she had very little knowledge of the crypto space and didn’t quite understand what she was getting into. However, she agreed to introduce the token when she thought half of the profits would go to her charity. 

She further claims that the meme token was presented to her in a very positive light, arguing she was misled.

She commented:

It was brought to me in a positive way — it was going to be something good and long-term, but it didn’t go that route at all, so it was like a smack in the face.

Hailey Welch

Welch is now suing the meme coin makers, with her lawyer Christian Barker insisting she was deceived on the project’s tokenomics, given that the token deployer holds about 80% of the token’s supply.

The Hawk Tuah token was first released on December 4, 2024, and quickly amassed close to $500 million in market cap in just a few hours after its launch. However, the token quickly plummeted, falling by over 91% to $41 million in market capitalization the next day.

Banks did not approve the release of his interview with Hailey Welch

FaZe Banks revealed that he only agreed to the interview under certain conditions. In his X post, Banks disclosed some of the stipulations, including that their interview should not be leaked to manipulate markets and that her team formulate a plan for the money she made, where it needs to go, and what to do with the token project.

Welch’s team even promised not to reveal the episode until his side greenlighted it. However, the episode leaked on Thursday before being taken down shortly after.

Banks believes that the growing hype around the meme token fueled the leak. He feels there was a hidden agenda behind the leak, especially with the token’s price rising almost immediately. He even added that he understood why Welch ended up in her predicament in the first place.

The Hawk token more than doubled in price on Thursday before dipping by more than 9% to $0.0002233.

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