‘Hawk Tuah’ Girl Added to Lawsuit Over Alleged Crypto Memecoin Fraud

Viral sensation Haliey Welch (better known as the “Hawk Tuah†girl) has been pulled into an expanding federal class-action lawsuit accusing promoters and insiders of orchestrating a sophisticated pump-and-dump scheme with her namesake crypto token. The suit, originally filed shortly after the Solana-based HAWK coin’s disastrous launch last year, claims that the project was rigged from the start to inflate its value rapidly before crashing, allowing early holders to pocket millions while leaving everyday investors holding worthless assets.

Recent amendments now target Welch (a former podcaster) herself, along with her manager and business entity, for allegedly playing key roles in hyping the token through misleading promises about its features and potential, despite knowing (or should have known) it lacked the technical backbone to deliver.

Lost money in crypto? Call Florence.

This is attorney advertising. No outcomes guaranteed. pic.twitter.com/AMVikmxFGg

— Burwick Law (@BurwickLaw) November 14, 2025

Welch skyrocketed to internet fame in 2024 after a candid street interview where she delivered her now-infamous “hawk tuah†line, a playful quip about a bedroom tip that quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Leveraging the buzz, she built a massive online following and launched a podcast, which was subsequently used to advertise the HAWK token. Unlike some other notorious “crypto queens†involved with billion-dollar schemes, this lawsuit alleges Welch only received a few hundred thousand dollars for her role.

At the heart of this controversy are memecoins. The trend kicked off with Dogecoin in 2013, a tongue-in-cheek digital currency featuring a Shiba Inu dog meme that unexpectedly gained traction and even celebrity endorsements. In recent years, memecoins have surged in popularity, fueled by user-friendly platforms like Pump.fun on the Solana blockchain, which make it easy for anyone to create and launch tokens with minimal barriers.

In other words, the HAWK debacle doesn’t exist in isolation; the lawsuit links it to a web of similar alleged rug pulls involving high-profile figures. Notably, even former President Donald Trump dipped into the memecoin arena around his January 2025 inauguration, endorsing an official Solana-based token that briefly soared before plummeting in value just days later.

This TRUMP memecoin is just one of a variety of examples of the concerns around Trump and those profiting off his presidency through various crypto-related projects and business deals. More recently, the Trump administration has faced backlash over the alleged corruption associated with the former CEO of crypto exchange Binance.

Other notable memecoins covered in the lawsuit include LIBRA, which was touted by Argentine President Javier Melei, and MELANIA, which was associated with the U.S. First Lady Melania Trump. The lawsuit alleges that the HAWK token’s collapse was part of a broader pattern of orchestrated rug pulls, with blockchain forensics linking the same wallet clusters and tactics to several high-profile memecoins.

Are Memecoins the Latest Crypto Fad to Come and Go?

Notably, the MarketVector Meme Coin Index, which tracks the six largest memecoins, is down 71% over the past year. While Pump.fun is still enjoying some success as a platform for launching new memecoins and has also launched its own token, though platform revenue has declined from a peak of $7 million in one day in January to around $1 million per day today, according to data from The Block.

The crypto market has long been prone to fleeting trends that inflate massive bubbles before bursting, leaving retail traders in the dust. According to the Chicago Journal of International Law, initial coin offerings (ICOs) raised over $27 billion by 2018 through often-dubious token sales that have amounted to little more than glossy whitepapers and empty promises. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) followed suit, building a $17 billion total market cap during their 2022 heyday that has since declined to around $2 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Both ICOs and NFTs also received the same sort of celebrity endorsements that are at the heart of the recent memecoin lawsuit. NFTs’ focus on art and culture is particularly analogous to the sort of marketing that is seen in the memecoin space.

Ironically, just as memecoin enthusiasm wanes, Coinbase has revived the ICO model with a new token sales platform, aiming to impose stricter standards like six-month lockups for issuers and algorithms favoring long-term holders this time around. Yet early signs are underwhelming: the inaugural Monad token sale may not achieve its goal of $187 million in token sales.

We were extremely intentional while at CoinList to ensure sales always sold out.

Rookie mistake for Coinbase’s first sale. https://t.co/MsGcRhl8rM

— Mike Zajko (@MikeZajko) November 18, 2025

It’s increasingly evident that Bitcoin and stablecoins represent the enduring pillars of the crypto ecosystem, offering genuine decentralization in Bitcoin’s case and something more akin to better tech (or at least less regulated tech) for traditional finance in the case of stablecoins.

However, this duo also underscores a widening chasm: while Bitcoin embodies peer-to-peer autonomy and is developing a decentralized monetary system, stablecoins often serve as tools for regulatory sidestepping by fintech startups, enabling “decentralization theater†that bolsters the U.S. dollar’s centralized hegemony through regulatory and lawmaker-approved versions of traditional finance rather than true innovation.