Is Haliey Welch Going to Jail? The Hawk Tuah Girl Might Be Hawking a Scam

The Hawk Tuah Girl might have bitten off more than she could chew after launching her own memecoin called $HAWK. Haliey Welch has really made a whole meal out of her 15 minutes of fame after an NSFW encounter on the street launched Welch into infamy. Since she trademarked a new phrase, Welch has gotten her own Wikipedia page, started a podcast, toyed around with reality television, and has shared a stage with multiple country music artists.

Despite all this success, Welch could be taken down by her own memecoin. She is now facing accusations of engaging in a rug pull scam which is at the very least unethical and at most, illegal. Is Haliey Welch going to jail? This could be a hawkshank redemption story.

According to Bankrate, a rug pull scheme is "where a cryptocurrency or NFT developer hypes a project to attract investor money, only to suddenly shut down or disappear, taking investor assets with them." In Welch's case, she was promoting $HAWK and allowed the Solana cryptocurrency platform to use her likeness in order to sell it, but within minutes of launching, the value plummeted.

Since cryptocurrency is still very much the Wild West, it's hard to say if Welch will get any jail time for this. She immediately took to social media in order to do some damage control, claiming in a post to X that neither she nor anyone from her team sold tokens during the launch. That didn't stop some investors from filing complaints with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, which, in the past, has filed lawsuits against cryptocurrency companies engaged in fraudulent behavior like rug pulling, per Creditcoin.

If Welch is convicted of fraud, she might face felony charges that could land her in prison for several years. She will also have a felony record that will undoubtedly make her life extremely difficult.

If you pop over to Haliey Welch's various social media platforms, you'll find the comment sections are filled with people who think the Hawk Tuah Girl is fleecing folks. Under a reel that was posted the day before her memecoin launched, several people joked that Welch needs to talk tuah lawyer. "Get a legal team now Hailey," said one person. "Your coin situation is not gonna end well."

As of Dec. 7, 2024, the pinned post on Welch's X (formerly Twitter) account is a request for people to drop their Solana Wallets so she can give out memecoins. The replies are filled with people who were already warning others that this was a scam before $HAWK even dropped. On Nov. 28, @MicahJanke responded, "Haliey I heard you got new coins, hope you aren’t planning to rug pull us I have my life savings invested." That would feel like a joke except for the fact that it might be what happened. Here's hoping Welch can do her podcast from prison.