Investors Outraged At Hawk Tuah Launch, Complain To SEC

Investors Outraged At Hawk Tuah Meme Coin Launch, File Complaints With SEC After 91% Drop

Updated: 05 December 2024

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Investors are furious over Haliey Welch’s Hawk Tuah (HAWK) meme coin launch, filing SEC complaints after a brief surge followed by a 91% drop amid insider trading allegations.

“I really lost $43k apeing in hawk tuah coin,” one disgruntled investor said in a Dec. 5 X post.

Hawk Tuah Meme Coin Soars To A Peak Market Cap Of $490 Million

The Hawk Tuah meme coin was launched on Dec. 4, 10:00 p.m. UTC. Shortly after its market debut, the token’s market cap soared to a peak of $490 million.

However, not long after reaching its peak valuation, HAWK saw its market cap plunge 91% to $41.7 million. It has since recovered slightly. DexScreener data shows the meme coin’s market cap stands at around $51.7 million as of 1:59 a.m. EST.

Aggregated data from DexScreener and Bubblemaps shows that insider wallets and snipers, who are wallets that buy up a large amount of tokens as soon as they launch, controlled approximately 80-90% of the meme coin’s supply at launch.

Solana block explorer Solscanner also shows that one wallet purchased 17.5% of HAWK’s supply just seconds after it launched using 4,195 Wrapped Solana (WSOL) worth $993,000 at the time. Over the course of the next one and a half hours, the same wallet sold 135.8 million HAWK for a $1.3 million profit.

Welch Denies Insider Trading Allegations As Observers Warn Of Legal Backlash

Welch’s official X account responded to the insider allegations in a Dec. 5 post, saying that the team did not sell any tokens. No KOLs were given free coins either and HAWK was launched on the decentralized liquidity protocol Meteora to reduce sniping risk as well, according to the post.

Copy and pasting:

Hawkanomics:

Team hasn’t sold one token and not 1 KOL was given 1 free token

We tried to stop snipers as best we could through high fee’s in the start of launch on @MeteoraAG

Fee’s have now been dropped pic.twitter.com/E7xN9VmCrx

— Haliey Welch (@HalieyWelchX) December 4, 2024

Regardless, observers have warned that Welch and her team could face legal scrutiny from the SEC. Several users have slaredy claimed that they have filed complaints with the regulator.