Hawk Tuah, a memecoin created by viral influencer Haliey Welch, sharply dropped by 91% in value after its launch.
Launched on December 4 at 10:00 PM UTC, Hawk Tuah (HAWK) initially skyrocketed, reaching a market capitalization of $490 million.
This success was short-lived as the token’s price quickly nosedived, with its valuation dipping to $41.7 million within just three hours.
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Bubblemaps revealed that a large portion of the token’s supply—between 80% and 90%—was controlled by insiders and snipers, a term used for traders who purchase large volumes of tokens immediately after a launch.
Welch posted a clarification on December 5, claiming that the launch had been executed through the decentralized liquidity protocol Meteora, designed to mitigate sniping activity.
She also stated that neither she nor her team had sold any tokens. “Team hasn’t sold one token and not 1 KOL was given 1 free token”, Welch stated.
However, Solscanner revealed that one wallet was able to purchase a large portion—17.5%—of the HAWK supply right after the token's launch. This wallet spent 4,195 Wrapped Solana (WSOL), and within the next 90 minutes, the wallet offloaded 135.8 million HAWK tokens, generating a profit of $1.3 million.
This isn’t the first time a celebrity-backed coin has caused chaos—Caitlyn Jenner’s coin crash has recently made headlines for all the wrong reasons. How did the angry buyers react? Read the full story.
