Did Haliey Welch’s Hawk Tuah Crypto Debacle Eclipse Bitcoin’s (BTC) $100K Moment?

One Bitcoin is value $100,000 – a milestone that has crypto OGs in an uproar. Donald Trump does Sell ​​DOGE T-shirts. It is a hectic time for crypto.

However what are my non-crypto pals texting me about?

Coin “Hawk Tuah”. Sure, in a really unscientific pattern dimension of the seven pals who texted me – unsolicited – about crypto this week, six of them primarily requested, “What is going on on with the Hawk Tuah coin?” (The seventh requested about Litecoin).

{That a} movie star’s low-level flirtation with memecoins would dominate group chat mindshare whereas breaking the unique cryptocurrency at historic ranges factors to a disconnect between the crypto trade’s notion of itself and that of the massive viewers – or not less than that of my pals. .

When HAWK launched on Wednesday, it occurred instantly shot up to a market capitalization of just about $500 million. Then simply as shortly, it plunged under $100 million, wiping out particular person investments that have been as soon as value lots of of hundreds of {dollars}. It now raises lower than $30 million.

Betting on memecoins is rarely a surefire funding technique. However there have been indicators that Hawk Tuah was a worse funding than most. Its launch was marred by accusations of dumping by insiders (which the founders deny) and a expensive trade tax that failed to discourage snipers from manipulating its value.

Most individuals who contacted me didn’t know this degree of element. That they had simply heard that the “hawk tuah” lady, Haliey Welch, had launched a memecoin and it wasn’t going so nicely.

“It reinforces my earlier perception that it is all nonsense,” says a pal who purchased bitcoin in 2020 however shortly bought it. He acknowledged that bitcoin and Ethereum’s ether might have “sure technological developments.” And but, “the truth that primarily anybody can create a brand new – doubtlessly most well-liked – cryptocurrency at any time” baffled him.

To my shock, this pal hadn’t heard that one bitcoin was now value $100,000, the highest story in line with nearly everybody who works in crypto. A lot of the ‘normals’ who contacted me about HAWK did not know this.

As an alternative, they puzzled whether or not Hawk Tuah would face authorized backlash. ‘I can not assist however have this sense [Haliey] Welch will inadvertently be accountable for a butterfly impact that ruins individuals’s lives,” one other pal mused.

Much less attention-grabbing to him was the worth of bitcoin. He wasn’t serious about shopping for earlier than, and he actually is not now. “I do not like crypto,” he mentioned.

Many individuals do not like crypto. Which may be why many individuals I do know are so enchanted by HAWK. It reinforces all of the unhealthy, rip-off concepts they’ve about what they contemplate digital nonsense.

That, after all, is the promise and hazard of permissionless blockchains. Anybody can do something.

Of the individuals who contacted me, just one talked about Bitcoin with out me asking. That gold bug pal jokingly taunted me for Bitcoin’s failure to carry even $100,000 for twenty-four hours.

One other pal who buys cryptocurrencies by Robinhood admitted he did not owe any BTC. “I do not actually have a cause why I haven’t got BTC,” he mentioned, “I assume I am simply not mainstream.”

“I am driving Litecoin to the fkn moon.”