A recently-launched meme-inspired cryptocurrency inspired by the words from a woman in Tennessee called Hailey Welch in a viral video that took the internet by storm, has seen its price explode upwards of 800% shortly after launch to then endure a significant correction.
The memecoin, $HAWKTUAH, was inspired by a video of Welch being interviewed on TikTok, in which she was asked for a move “in bed that makes a man go crazy every time,” to which she replied in a Southern answer “oh you gotta give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang,” with the ticker resembling the spitting sound she made.
The video went viral to the point it generated numerous remixes, merchandising, and made Welch famous. The memecoin inspired on it saw an upward surge to $0.039 shortly after being launched, but has since fallen to around $0.0053 at the time of writing.
The significant decline likely came as the developers behind the memecoin and its early adopters started selling on the market as its adoption grew. Notably it grew at a time in which large cryptocurrency whales have been depositing millions worth of memecoins onto leading cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to on-chain analytics firm SpotOnChain, one whale deposited 1.08 trillion SHIB tokens worth roughly $18.12 million into the leading cryptocurrency exchange after accumulating between November and December 2023 at the market bottom. Their accumulation when prices were depressed meant they made an estimate profit of $8 million for a 79% return.
Meanwhile a second whale deposited 700 billion PEPE tokens on the exchange, worth $7.8 million, while keeping an additional 800 billion PEPE token holdings. The deposit meant they realized a loss of around $3.47 million, or 15%.
Despite the sell-off memecoins have endured, some traders are still making millions of dollars investing in them. One trader, likely an insider in a project, recently made over $3 million in 30 minutes with the Solana-based $BAKED token.
Featured image via Unsplash.
