Following a cryptocurrency scandal in December 2024, Haliey Welch (aka Hawk Tuah girl) seemed to drop off the map. Months later, she’s opening up about what really happened. 

The trouble started when Welch, who rose to fame after a viral street interview moment last summer, announced she would be releasing her own cryptocurrency memecoin called $HAWK late last year. The token was publicized heavily and quickly rose to a $490 million market cap when launched on December 4. It tanked just as quickly, and its value plunged $440 million in just 20 minutes. 

Now, more than two months later, we finally have an explanation. “How this idea got brought to me, it was supposed to be a ‘long-term coin,’” Welch explained to Richard Bengtson (better known as Banks), founder of the e-sports brand FaZe Clan, on a leaked episode of Welch’s podcast Talk Tuah. (The leaked episode was first reported by Dexerto.) Welch claimed a “friend of a friend” came up with the idea. Welch, who didn’t know much about crypto, trusted his plan—and that, she said, turned out to be her “biggest mistake.”

Welch recalled this mutual friend acted “a little weird” on the token launch day. At launch, only 3% of the token supply was made available for trading, while 17% was allocated to “presale investors.” These early investors collectively raised $2.8 million for their share, but two-thirds quickly cashed out, selling off their holdings for an immediate profit. “I feel really bad for all the people that got affected by it,” Welch said through tears. “And it just didn’t go the way I planned.”

At the time of the scandal, Bengtson urged Welch to fire her team, calling the token an outright “scam.” Now, he is again making that same demand—but for an entirely different reason. 

On February 6, 2025, Bengtson revealed on X that he had agreed to appear as a special guest on Welch’s comeback episode under strict conditions, which included “not allowing markets to be manipulated by leaking this episode’s existence before a resolution was found” and “finding a real solution regarding the money she made, where that should go, and what to do with the $HAWK project moving forward.”

So in an attempt to hear Haliey Welch’s side of the Crypto scam story, I agreed to do her first podcast back.

I had heavy stipulations including;

1) Not allowing markets to be manipulated by leaking this episodes existence before a resolution was found.

2) Her team finding… pic.twitter.com/X3TW5nZmtR

— FaZe Banks (@Banks) February 6, 2025

But according to Bengtson, someone from Welch’s team “leaked or inside-traded the token,” causing him to call off the episode on the spot. (March 08, 2025), however, the episode was “randomly” leaked. Though it was quickly taken down, Bengtson wrote, “The price of $HAWK is pumping and they completely fucking fumbled the bag, yet again.” After calling, again, for Welch to fire her team, he added: “Poor girl, it’s a wonder how she found herself in this position in the first place.”