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.
