The token plummeted 91% in 3 hours. How did Hailey Welch go from Meme Queen to Meme Coin Victim?

Original author: REKT

Original translation: Block unicorn

Some people only enjoy the short 15 minutes of fame, which is as brilliant as fireworks; others are like old clowns stuck on the stage, staying on stage for too long, too embarrassed to leave…

In the age of attention-seeking in crypto, where every viral moment seems to spawn a coin, we have Hailey Welch and her $HAWK token, which soared to a staggering $490 million in market value only to plummet 91% just three hours later.

Although Hailey Welch assured on Twitter that the team did not sell tokens, on-chain data revealed a completely different truth – 96% of the tokens were concentrated in ten associated wallets before the launch.

A sniper wallet operator easily made a profit of $1.3 million, while ordinary investors watched their investments go up in smoke.

In an era where celebrity-backed tokens are a crash course in disaster, $HAWK may have just set a new record.

As investors complain, law firms are swarming around, with some already whispering: “HAWK tokens need lawyers.” Perhaps too much attention isn’t a good thing.

“This is not a money-making operation,” Hailey Welch declared before launching the $HAWK meme coin. The project, which was backed by Web3 incubator overHere and claimed to bridge the mainstream and crypto worlds, ultimately proved unstable. In just three hours, $430 million in market value evaporated like air.

“HAWK is live!” She tweeted the contract address, leading thousands of people to rush in, only to have them all wiped out. What happened next would make even experienced crypto veterans frown: HAWK soared 900%, and its market value soared to $490 million.

Then, gravity took over. The token’s value collapsed by 91%, leaving it with a market cap of just $41.7 million, all in a matter of hours. The team’s solution to prevent sniping was to set a high initial fee on the Meteora protocol. However, spoiler alert: this approach did not work at all.

An extremely sharp predator not only succeeded in sniping, but also staged a carpet bombing. Just a few seconds after going online, a wallet quickly sucked away 17.5% of the token supply and easily completed the transaction with 4,195 WSOL (about US$965,400).

After just 90 minutes, the wallet had made $1.3 million in profit by flipping approximately 178 million HAWK tokens.

Meanwhile, ordinary investors at the other end of the food chain were “plucked of their feathers and could no longer fly.” One unfortunate investor allegedly swapped $1.4 million of MOODENG for HAWK, only to watch his investment evaporate in an instant, just like the promises of the bull market.

If the drama of the launch wasn’t enough, the next thing was the appearance of the crypto community’s “favorite” detective Coffeezilla. The “Eagle God” broke into Spaces’ live broadcast midway, trying to get to the bottom of the so-called “million-dollar scam.”

His sudden appearance brought the already chaotic token launch event to a climax, but it did not last long because he was muted.

Did she say anything?

The Spaces livestream went on, but the damage was done and Coffeezilla (who was a crypto detective exposing scams) had lit a fire that couldn’t be extinguished.

As the discussion turned to those questionable fees and token distribution issues, Hailey Welch left one of the most hawkward exits in crypto history – suddenly announcing on the live broadcast that she was going to sleep.

Nothing makes a project sound more “legitimate” than ducking thorny questions with a virtual “Irish goodbye.”

All this makes investors wonder: If there is really nothing to hide, why bother pretending to sleep? However, seeing millions of funds disappear in just a few hours, sleep may become the only safe haven facing angry investors. However, when the funds evaporate in a few hours, can any explanation really extinguish the anger?

Crisis PR followed…

The FUD (panic) has spread too far, lets explain it, the overHere team began an attempt to save the narrative.

In response to questions about Bubblemaps data showing that 96% of tokens are concentrated in a few wallets, their defense is: Everything is in line with token economics.

The team claims that these centralized wallets simply reflect the public distribution plan:

• 21% allocated to the community fund

• 20% for Haileys fans

• 30% Reserve

• 17% Strategic Allocation

• 10% allocated to Hailey (locked)

• Only 2% publicly allocated

“Hailey’s team has absolutely not sold any tokens,” they insisted, explaining that her token allocation was locked for one year and would take three years to fully unlock.

Perhaps this is a noble move – if the other 90% of tokens are not free to move. When a token plummets 91% in three hours, will the market mechanism care about your lock-up period?

Birds move in flocks

But this “eagle” does not fly alone, and the launch of tokens does not occur in a vacuum.

A month ago, Hailey Welch issued an intriguing warning: Not my token, be careful not to be scammed. She also directed people to Doc Hollywood and SolanaSweeper for consultation on MEME coin business.

It turns out she was half right — it was indeed her token, but the “scam” part has stood the test of time.

In a video on Coffeezilla, Welch’s lawyers accidentally revealed her actual compensation — $125,000 upfront, plus a 50% cut of the proceeds from her allocation of tokens. As the tokens continued to fall, law firms gathered like vultures after a desert rainstorm.

Burwick Law invited anyone who lost money in $HAWK to “know your legal rights” on X. Some users claimed that they had filed complaints with the SEC—perhaps after SafeMoon investors get their refunds, it will be their turn. The real judgment may not come from regulators or lawyers, but from the market itself.

While criticism has focused on the Welch team, on-chain data shows another culprit — part of the 17% strategic allocation tokens went to 285 investors from the HAWKXJ address and were fully unlocked at launch.

These “early birds” did not hesitate to sell out to the latecomers quickly. When early investors profit from the latecomers, should we blame the token’s spokesperson or the “invisible hand” of the selling?

At least one cunning sniper wallet made off with $1.3 million, while countless others had to deal with lighter “baggage” than expected.

At least some people saw the warning signs while others were busy refreshing Twitter, looking for the next viral moment. In the crypto attention economy, perhaps the real “winners” are those who know when to look away. In the attention economy, is notoriety as valuable as good reputation?

In the crypto world’s endless pursuit of “the next big-money coin,” even fifteen minutes of fame can seem eternity.

Although Hailey Welch became famous from online MEME to issuing MEME coins, many investors also paid a heavy price in this viral traffic carnival and realized the true price of explosive fame.

Today, every crypto player should be familiar with the textbook How to Avoid Being Harvested – Chapter 1: Celebrity tokens are a major threat to wallet health.

Yet, history repeats itself, as retail investors continue to chase celebrity tokens like moths to a flame, ignoring the increasingly expensive “cost” of the game. As PT Barnum is said to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute, and two swindlers waiting to take his cake.” In the crypto industry’s attention economy, even these odds seem conservative.

The intersection of traffic and encryption urgently needs a new gatekeeper role – one that can fill the gap between viral traffic and sustainable tokens, and prevent all this from happening before more reputations are damaged and wallets are emptied.

Perhaps the real “blanket harvest” comes not from the friends we make along the way, but from our blind belief that “this time it will be different.”

With law firms angling to test the waters and regulators sharpening their knives, how many more fans will need to be plucked before we admit that sometimes, fourteen of our fifteen minutes of fame is too many?

This article is sourced from the internet: The token plummeted 91% in 3 hours. How did Hailey Welch go from Meme Queen to Meme Coin Victim?

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