Internet star Haliey Welch, also known as the “Hawk Tuah Girl,” said Friday she is “fully cooperating” with attorneys who are representing people impacted by the recent crash of crypto meme coin $HAWK.
Welch helped launch the cryptocurrency, named after her viral catchphrase, earlier this month. Within hours after the digital coin was made available, its price plummeted and the 22-year-old influencer faced accusations that it was a scam. At the time, Welch’s team blamed “snipers” — bots programmed to buy tokens immediately upon launch and sell when prices spike — for causing the market cap fluctuation.
Investors of the $HAWK coin filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the coin’s creators, accusing the company overHere Ltd., its founder, Clinton So, Tuah The Moon Foundation and social media influencer Alex Larson Schultz of unlawfully promoting and selling cryptocurrency that they say was never properly registered with the SEC.
The suit, a copy of which was reviewed by NBC News, was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. It does not name Welch as a defendant.
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In a post on X on Friday, Welch responded to the lawsuit, urging those who “experienced losses related to this” to contact the law firm Burwick PLLC.
“I take this situation extremely seriously and want to address my fans, the investors who have been affected, and the broader community,” she wrote. “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.”
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A spokesperson for Welch did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment on Friday.
Burwick PLLC, which teamed up with law firm Wolf Popper LLC, said that $HAWK’s token market capitalization “surged” to $491 million after launching on Dec. 4, but its “meteoric rise was short-lived, as the $HAWK token’s value plummeted by over 90% within hours, dropping below $100 million.”
“This extreme volatility left many investors, particularly first-time cryptocurrency investors drawn in by Haliey Welch’s involvement, facing significant financial losses,” the two firms wrote in a news release Friday.
Wolf Popper LLP and Burwick Law said they are “seeking to recover on behalf of the plaintiffs’ and the class’s purchases of $HAWK tokens.”
Welch jumped into the crypto craze after months of growing her brand. Since June, when her interview went viral, she has cashed in on her success with Hawk Tuah-themed merch, her podcast “Talk Tuah” and the launch of her AI dating assistant app Pookie Tools.
In the days leading up to the $HAWK’s launch, she promoted it in several posts on X. In an interview with Fortune, she said she used to think of crypto as “just a scam” and an “easy way for you to lose money.” However, she said she began seeing it as a “good way to interact with fans” after attending several cryptocurrency conferences.
In a Dec. 4 post on X following the initial controversy, Welch said that she and the people behind the coin have not sold any of their holdings.
Memecoins are cryptocurrencies such as DOGE (named after the iconic doge meme) and MOODENG (named after the viral baby pygmy hippo), that were inspired by internet memes. Their performance in the market can be volatile, depending largely on the hype generated by social media trends. But some memecoins have also courted controversy, and celebrities who have touted crypto coins without transparency about their financial incentives have also faced scrutiny and legal action.
In a joint statement on X on Friday, Wolf Popper LLP and Burwick Law wrote, “Sadly, this is one of many memecoin cases where institutional greed has exploited celebrities and their influence to harm everyday people."
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