Internet sensation Haliey Welch, better known to the world as the “Hawk Tuah girl,” has broken her silence on the chaos surrounding the failed launch of her namesake cryptocurrency—and it turns out things got far more serious than many assumed. On a recent episode of her podcast Talk Tuah, Welch disclosed that both the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigated her over the ill-fated memecoin $HAWK, which plummeted in value shortly after launch.
According to Welch, her brush with federal investigators began unexpectedly when agents from the FBI showed up at her grandmother’s house. “Granny called me in a panic—saying the FBI was at her door asking about me,” Welch recalled. “She was having a full-on heart attack thinking I’d done something criminal.”
Welch says she voluntarily handed over her phone and cooperated fully, sitting down with FBI agents who questioned her on the crypto project and her involvement. The good news, she said, is that both the FBI and SEC ultimately found no wrongdoing on her part. “They cleared me,” she said. “I was good to go.”
The controversy stems from the December 2024 launch of the HAWK token, a memecoin inspired by Welch’s viral internet fame. Her sudden stardom erupted in June 2024 after a clip of her cheeky, off-the-cuff comment during a street interview exploded online—earning her the nickname “Hawk Tuah girl.” Leveraging that fame, a memecoin bearing her name and image was introduced to the market.
But within hours of its release, the token tanked by more than 90%, sparking widespread allegations of an exit scam. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps pointed to suspicious wallet activity, claiming insiders had purchased large amounts of the token early, only to dump them immediately after launch, leaving retail investors holding the bag.
Welch now says she was largely a pawn in the entire ordeal. “I didn’t know the first thing about crypto,” she admitted. “I was just trying to make something fun for my fans. But I trusted the wrong people, and that backfired.”
According to Welch, a company—whose name she declined to reveal for legal reasons—had full control of her X (formerly Twitter) account during the launch. That same team fed her lines to record for promotional videos, which were then shared under her name without her full understanding of the implications. “They basically had me reading scripts and didn’t tell me much of anything about what was going on,” she said.
Perhaps the most surreal moment came when Welch was asked to appear on a livestream with crypto sleuth Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla. “I was thrown into that livestream with no warning,” she said. “As soon as Coffeezilla came on, the team started yelling at me to mute the call. I didn’t even know who he was—they set me up to fail.”
While Welch insists she never profited directly from the coin, she acknowledges being paid a flat marketing fee. That money, she says, is long gone—spent entirely on legal bills and crisis PR. “I didn’t make a dime off the actual token,” she said.
The fallout continues. In December, a group of investors filed a lawsuit against the alleged developers of the HAWK coin, including figures like Alex Schultz and the Tuah the Moon Foundation. The suit claims they promoted and sold HAWK as an unregistered security. Notably, Welch was not named as a defendant.
Despite being cleared by authorities, Welch took a moment during her podcast to address the fans who feel betrayed. “It makes me feel awful that people trusted me and ended up losing money. I should have done more research. I should have asked more questions. But I didn’t—and that’s on me.”
Her story now serves as a cautionary tale in the fast-moving world of memecoins and viral fame: when influence meets crypto, the consequences can be unpredictable—and sometimes, even the FBI gets involved.
