Investors are suing the team behind Haliey Welch’s HAWK crypto project in a lawsuit alleging that crypto-newbies enticed by her endorsement suffered significant damages when the token crashed. 

Newsweek reports that the lawsuit filed today claims “defendants offered and sold to the public without proper registration.” This, it says, resulted in the “unlawful promotion and sale of the Hawk Tuah cryptocurrency memecoin.”  

It also states that “many of the investors were first-time cryptocurrency participants drawn to the project through Welch’s involvement,” and that after the token crashed, it caused “substantial damages to investors who relied on Welch’s participation and the project’s stated road map.” 

Read more: Haliey Welch’s HAWK token team breaks silence to shift the blame

Defendants listed in the lawsuit include the Tuah The Moon Foundation, overHere Ltd. and its exec, Clinton So, and Alex Larson Schultz, a.k.a. “Doc Hollywood.” Welch isn’t named as a defendant. 

The suit claims they “leveraged Welch’s celebrity status and connections to enhance the Token’s credibility and appeal.” It also claims “aggressive” promos and growth promises were used to create a “speculative frenzy.”

Welch hasn’t posted anything on her social media channels since launching the token. Indeed, the last thing she posted — that she was going to bed — quickly became a meme.

Despite radio silence from Welch, overHere did address the controversy, claiming that most of the blame should be placed on Schultz. It did admit, however, that it should’ve been more diligent.

The lawsuit seeks a trial by jury and over $150,000 in damages.

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The post Haliey Welch isn’t listed in HAWK memecoin lawsuit appeared first on Protos.

The team behind Haliey Welch’s controversial “Hawk Tuah” crypto project HAWK, has finally spoken out after 12 days of silence in the wake of the token’s collapse.

Welch herself has also been absent from her social channels since the token’s botched launch. The last thing she said was, “I’m going to bed, I’ll speak to y’all in the morning,” which spawned a series of memes joking that she’s still asleep. 

However, the team that launched the HAWK token, overHere, which had been silent since December 5, finally spoke yesterday in an attempt to distance itself from the mess. 

OverHere claims its role was “unofficial” and “uncontracted.” As such, it says it received no fees and made no profit from HAWK’s launch. Instead, it places much of the blame on “Doc Hollywood,” who apparently “controlled all token decisions, fees, treasury.”

Doc Hollywood was allegedly silent despite “market chaos” and “watered down” participation conditions, including shelving of a planned token lock-up. It was also allegedly his decision to implement the 15% fees and he apparently lied about overHere’s capacity in the project. 

As for overHere, it admitted that it should’ve spoken out sooner and that it trusted the wrong partners while spending too much time fixing other people’s mess. OverHere claims that Welch’s team needs to step up, Doc needs to step down, and a full treasury audit is needed. It said, “Without Haliey’s engagement, nothing changes.”

OverHere has, however, failed to address the purpose of a Cayman Islands foundation and British Virgin Islands business the team repeatedly referred to in an X Spaces.

Read more: Bit on that thang! Michael Saylor ‘orange pills’ the Hawk Tuah girl

According to Crypto Sleuth Coffeezilla, the team pre-sold millions of tokens to investors who then dumped their holdings when the token sale went live. There was also a problem with a crypto sniper and the team also implemented transaction fees of 15%.

At launch, the token hit a high of $0.000856 before plummeting in price. It’s now at $0.0000000000164, having decreased by 100% since its all-time high. 

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Haliey Welch, the media executive behind the Talk Tuah podcast, launched a memecoin called $HAWK in collaboration with overHere. The token has attracted significant controversy as its early market capitalization of nearly $400 million has quickly plummeted to under $20 million. 

This has led a number of Welch’s fans to brand it a scam, and the project has faced accusations that the team has been selling the token — something overHere has publicly denied.

These accusations have often centered around the fact that Bubblemaps claimed 96% of the supply was in a single cluster.

Assuming overHere is telling the truth and the team intended to follow the “Hawkanomics” token distribution plan, it’s important to note that it seems less than half of the token supply would be allocated to the public. 

What real utility for $HAWK?

Besides the distribution, there are many other potential criticisms that can be levelled at this project, including potential problems with its marketing.

overHere has publicly advertised that along with Welch, it will be “creating real utility for memecoins” with this project.

However, the website for $HAWK, as well as the entirety of the available documentation, doesn’t describe anything resembling utility.

Indeed, the closest the website comes to describing this so-called “utility” is claiming that “hundreds of thousands of non-crypto users will be onboarded by $HAWK.” 

However, the project seems incredibly unlikely to ever achieve that goal. Furthermore, onboarding people is not prima facie “utility,” as utility requires the token to be able to be used.

Furthermore, despite claiming that the project will onboard “hundreds of thousands of non-crypto users” the Token Terms and Conditions additionally claim that, “TOKENS ARE ONLY INTENDED FOR THOSE PERSONS WHO ARE KNOWLEDGEABLE AND EXPERIENCED IN CRYPTOCURRENCIES, BLOCKCHAIN, AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES.”

It is unclear how this token could be intended to onboard “non-crypto users” while also only being intended for people who are “knowledgeable and experienced in cryptocurrencies.”

Protos has reached out to overHere and Penthouse Life (Welch’s management) several times since Friday morning to get clarification on what “real utility” this offers. We have not received a response. 

What Cayman Islands foundation?

Following the token’s controversial launch, Welch and overHere took to an X Spaces to explain what happened.

Throughout this Spaces, the team repeatedly referenced a Cayman Islands foundation that was behind the token.

Oddly, the terms and conditions for $HAWK reference “Tuah the Moon Inc.” which appears to be a British Virgin Islands business, not a foundation. It’s not clear what role the frequently mentioned foundation is fulfilling, or even what its identity is. 

Read more: US congressman Mike Collins goes from altcoins to memecoins

Strangely, the X Spaces is no longer publicly available.

Protos has reached out to overHere and Penthouse Life for clarification on why the Spaces was deleted and the nature of this Cayman Islands foundation and British Virgin Islands business. However, once again, at time of publication, we had received no response. 

So what?

Some users online have been quick to defend Welch, claiming she wasn’t knowledgeable enough about cryptocurrency to be held responsible for these problems. Strangely, this defense would mean she’s not the intended audience for her own token, based on her own token’s terms. 

Others have tried to take advantage of these stumbles to launch their own competing memecoins. Many of these centered around jokes involving Welch’s famous meme, or suggesting she was likely to face jail, prison, or at least a judge. 

Some have also been quick to suggest that “investors” in a token themed around a blowjob-based meme don’t deserve recourse in the spirit of caveat emptor.

Both overHere and Welch have been quiet since the Spaces concluded, not even willing to answer emails — at least when they come from us.

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