Since becoming a viral star this summer thanks to a street interview in which she offered charmingly graphic sex advice, Haliey Welch, aka “Hawk Tuah Girl,” has launched a podcast and an animal rights organization, carving out a comfortable niche as an influencer created. Being more online has, of course, allowed her to maintain and capitalize on her fame, but it has also led to some strange endorsements – Welch regularly extols the greatness of X (formerly Twitter), its owner Elon Musk, and Tesla’s troubled Cybertruck. to give a handful of related examples.

Along the way, Welch is also involved in the world of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin mining, in which she has invested. For a woman who calls herself the “Queen of Memes,” it’s no surprise that she also owns Dogecoin, a so-called “meme coin” based on the iconic “Doge” meme of a Shiba Inu. (She bought it because of Musk’s enthusiasm for the meme and the asset, which has now given its name to his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a commission he will appoint for President-elect Donald Trump.) Being a meme herself, It was perhaps inevitable that crypto entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to similarly leverage the Welch brand on a new coin. And so on Wednesday, she and a team of advisors launched $HAWK on the blockchain platform Solana, promising that it complies with securities laws and is certainly not a money grab.

A day later, almost no one in the crypto industry believes it. Amid the high anticipation, the coin’s value exploded by 900 percent in its first trading session on Tuesday, pushing its market cap from $HAWK to nearly half a billion dollars. Then just as quickly, the price collapsed by about 95 percent, wiping out retail investors within hours. (The market cap has since recovered slightly to $28 million.) The allegations made the rounds, with many crypto watchers claiming that $HAWK was a pump-and-dump scheme or a rug pull – if Developers build up hype for developing a crypto project with money, only to liquidate their position and walk away, leaving others with worthless tokens.

Of particular interest as the meme coin crashed was alleged evidence that $HAWK insiders were dumping their shares for huge sums, and that some buyers known as “snipers” were quickly accumulating much of the available coins they would soon have dumped for immediate profit. A crypto wallet, as stated in the publication Cointelegraph found, was able to snag 17.5 percent of the offer and then sell it for $1.3 million in just 90 minutes. According to blockchain data analyst Bubblemaps, as of Tuesday afternoon, 96 percent of $HAWK was concentrated in a group of related wallets, indicating a high level of coordination in these transactions.

Welch and her team tried to reach out to those affected in an audio event on Wednesday evening. Welch remained largely silent during the hour-long conversation, allowing her crypto partners on the platform overHere, which launched $HAWK, and a person named “Doc Hollywood” to answer questions. When pressed about what went wrong, the men spoke in evasive circles about how the 18-person team behind $HAWK hadn’t sold their tokens.

The discussion turned controversial when Stephen Findeisen, a YouTuber known as Coffeezilla known for his dogged investigations into crypto fraud, was allowed to speak. “This is one of the most miserable, terrible starts I’ve ever seen in my life,” Findeisen said, prompting Welch, seemingly unaware of his work, to interject: “Okay, then why the hell are you in this?” Findeisen further questioned Hollywood about who received nearly $2 million from the unusually high transaction fees on $HAWK transactions; Hollywood said it went to the Cayman Islands foundation that developed the project, but declined to provide further details about the organization. He and an overHere representative promised to provide evidence to counter the allegations of improper financial activity, but did not do so until the following afternoon. Findeisen ended his discussion by simply calling $HAWK a “scam.”

At another point in the call, Richard Bengston, a YouTuber who goes by FaZe Banks, agreed with Findeisen’s harsh assessment. He advised Welch to immediately fire whoever convinced her to be the face of “mismanaged” cryptocurrency, saying the $HAWK disaster was another example of influencers entering the crypto space without to understand how to do their due diligence and protect their audiences. She ignored the advice, but 20 minutes later, Welch abruptly interrupted a technical question and said, “Anyway, I’m going to bed and I’ll see you tomorrow,” bringing the interrogation to an end.

A representative for Welch did not respond to a request for comment Rolling Stonebut the Spaces discussion was apparently so damning that she removed the recording from her X account. (It remains available via a YouTube upload.) Findeisen subsequently hosted a Spaces debrief on his own, in which he continued to criticize the $HAWK developers for dodging his questions, adding that they muted him at times would have. He also lamented that it was likely not experienced crypto investors who were harmed by the crash, but newcomers to the scene. “The most insidious thing about what they said was that we were targeting everyday people, everyday fans,” he said of the $HAWK team. “We want to get (Welch’s) fans excited about crypto. And unfortunately there are some really sad stories here about people who actually put their money into these things and don’t know any better.”

On Thursday evening, Findeisen released a video covering the entire situation. It included screenshots of text messages from Welch’s entertainment lawyer showing that she had received a $125,000 advance from an unnamed company to market the token and 50 percent of the net proceeds from that company after deducting third-party expenses and costs for development and implementation were covered. In a follow-up message, Welch’s attorney added, “She truly had no intention of harassing the fans.”

“I think there were a lot of signs that this wasn’t going to work,” says Findeisen Rolling Stone. “They sold 17 percent of the tokens to insiders who had no lock-up period for their tokens, while only releasing 3 percent to the public for trading.” I get the impression that Welch was misinformed, but also that Welch saw dollar signs and didn’t ask enough questions. Plus, she didn’t seem to take it too seriously when confronted about it. I hope she acknowledges the harm she has done, intentionally or unintentionally, and takes responsibility to help her fans who have lost money.”

A pair of defensive X-posts from Welch and overHere on Wednesday were contradicted by Community Notes, which claimed – in a mocking nod to the name of their podcast – that Welch would have to “talk to ‘Tuah’-Richter” soon. She didn’t post anything else Thursday as jokes about a possible prison sentence continued to spread. And while it remains to be seen what legal or reputational consequences her foray into the crypto world will face, she has already had the dubious honor of inspiring a “revenge coin,” $TUAH, which roughly translates to “Straight Tuah Prison.” Fueled by memes of Welch behind bars, investors are trying to push the value of $TUAH so high that it exceeds the market cap of $HAWK, and they just might succeed.

However, as with any new crypto fad, there will likely still be some poor suckers left holding the bag.