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Speaker 1: Cool Media.

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Speaker 2: Hi everybody. Jamie here with just a few notes up top.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the Hawk Tuus series.

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Speaker 2: If you haven't listened to the previous parts, I would

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Speaker 2: recommend you do so. I just wanted to mention, because

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Speaker 2: it doesn't come up in the space of this episode,

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Speaker 2: that we have done our due diligence. We reached out

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Speaker 2: to Haley Welch's team, we heard back, and then we

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Speaker 2: were slow ghosted to date, so now you know. Also,

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Speaker 2: if you enjoy the show, you can head over to

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Speaker 2: our reddit board. Normally I wouldn't suggest going on a

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Speaker 2: reddit board, but it's actually very lovely and wholesome our

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Speaker 2: slash sixteenth minute.

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Speaker 1: If you have ideas for future.

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Speaker 2: Episodes you'd like to see, or if you just want

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Speaker 2: to have a nice time with the nice listeners of

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Speaker 2: this show. Also one more note. The documentary I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about towards the beginning of this episode is by Dan Olsen.

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Speaker 2: It is called Line Goes Up. It's on his YouTube

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Speaker 2: channel Folding Ideas. It's fantastic.

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Speaker 3: Okay, talk to apart three Let's go.

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Speaker 4: Sixteen six sixteen.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take

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Speaker 2: a look at the Internet's characters of the day and

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Speaker 2: see how their big moment affected them and what it

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Speaker 2: says about us.

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Speaker 1: And the Internet and today. In a truly grand finale, we.

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Speaker 2: Are going to take a look at the scam that

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Speaker 2: took down viral star Aley Welch aka Hawk to a

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Speaker 2: Girl for now at least. If there's one thing I've

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Speaker 2: learned in the course of making this show, it's to

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Speaker 2: never count a diva out. And for many of you,

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Speaker 2: this may be a moment in Haley's online career you

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Speaker 2: thought would have come much earlier in the series, her

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Speaker 2: crypto scam crypto scams being something that I have postponed

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Speaker 2: trying to understand for half a decade at least, But

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Speaker 2: for everyone, a day does come, and so half mine

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Speaker 2: and perhaps so half yours. So I guess just a disclaimer.

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Speaker 2: If you do understand crypto, even in a basic way,

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Speaker 2: this part may be a little frustrating for you. But

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Speaker 2: if you don't, I will walk you through this as

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Speaker 2: best I can, because this is the moment that I

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Speaker 2: suspect most people are going to remember about Hailey Welch.

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Speaker 2: While most people didn't know much more than her original

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Speaker 2: viral moment up until this time, and maybe some checked

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Speaker 2: out Talk TUA. This the crypto scam became the legacy.

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Speaker 1: The Wholk two girl might be going to prison for

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Speaker 1: the dumbest scam in history.

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Speaker 5: Hawk twa girl also known as Hailey Welch, launched her

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Speaker 5: mean cooin hawk last week. The coin soared to a

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Speaker 5: market cap around four hundred million dollars be fourteen game.

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Speaker 6: This girl just ruined her entire career and honestly.

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Speaker 7: We all saw this coming, right.

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Speaker 2: So how does this crypto launch for hawkcoin go from

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Speaker 2: being Haley Doc Hollywood and the team hailing it as

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Speaker 2: the biggest opportunity in years to Doc Hollywood calling everyone

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Speaker 2: who had invested mentally ill in under twenty four hours. Well, first,

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Speaker 2: let's set the scene a brief history of crypto alongside

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Speaker 2: a recap of Haley Welch's life. Attempts at cryptocurrency were

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Speaker 2: underway years before Haley was born. The idea was first

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Speaker 2: conceived in nineteen eighty three, was acknowledged by the NSA

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six, and systems like BitGold were bandied

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Speaker 2: about before the Internet went mainstream. And finally the technology

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Speaker 2: ran smoothly enough to announce formally.

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Speaker 1: Over a decade after that.

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Speaker 2: Hailey Welch was born in two thousand and two to

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Speaker 2: a lower class, fractured family in Tennessee. Her earliest years

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Speaker 2: were under two consecutive George W. Bush presidencies, heading into

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Speaker 2: kindergarten around the time that the housing bubble in the

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Speaker 2: US got really bad during the mid two thousands. Then

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Speaker 2: in late two thousand and seven, the Great Recession began

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Speaker 2: and it had a massive effect on Tennessee, slamming the

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Speaker 2: job market for years to come. And in a complete coincidence,

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Speaker 2: I'm sure, as the public's faith in big banking understandably plummeted,

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Speaker 2: the idea of cryptocurrency finally became palatable in the mainstream.

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Speaker 2: In two thousand and nine. Bitcoin was launched by Satoshi Nakamoto,

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Speaker 2: who Hayley Welch not for nothing, regularly parodied on X

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Speaker 2: calling herself Hoktoshi to a moto. I know, really creative. Anyways,

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Speaker 2: crypto continues to grow and shrink in a pretty niche

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Speaker 2: market in these early years. Silk Road is launched in

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Speaker 2: twenty twelve and then is shut down by the FBI

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Speaker 2: several years later. The way that the crypto blockchain works.

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Speaker 2: At its simplest is that it's a decentralized activity log

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Speaker 2: of financial transactions that relies on a con census mechanism

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Speaker 2: among users that often ends up sowing a fundamental distrust

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Speaker 2: in understanding what these numbers on this blockchain actually mean. Basically,

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Speaker 2: it requires a hell of a lot of checks and

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Speaker 2: balances for users to get clear answers, and that kind

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Speaker 2: of labor can be very time consuming for someone who's

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Speaker 2: just an individual doing crypto in earnest alone. So most

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Speaker 2: people you hear that have been very successful in crypto

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Speaker 2: have a team doing this labor for them in order

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Speaker 2: to maximize their own personal profit.

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Speaker 1: Crypto, as professor of.

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Speaker 2: Computer science and Economics Jen Lansky qualified, requires the following. First,

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Speaker 2: its value is maintained through consensus and not a big

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Speaker 2: bank central authority. Second, the system will decide when new

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Speaker 2: cryptocurrency can be minted. Third, ownership can be proven only

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Speaker 2: in the crypto blockchain. Fourth, crypto can be transferred, but

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Speaker 2: transaction statements can only be accessed by the current owner.

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Speaker 2: And finally, if two ownership changes are requested at once

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Speaker 2: on the blockchain, only one of these transactions can be

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Speaker 2: acted on something that ends up screwing over a lot

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Speaker 2: of people down the line. It seems like as crypto

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Speaker 2: becomes more normalized, even in niche internet communities, interest then

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Speaker 2: moves to a currency called ethereum, a version of cryptocurrency

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Speaker 2: that became very successful by marketing itself on the idea

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Speaker 2: that crypto bypasses government corruption and doesn't just force you

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Speaker 2: to sign up for a new set of unregulated corruptions.

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Speaker 2: For years, as Dan Olsen explains, there were these unbased

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Speaker 2: rumors that various countries Brazil Venezuela were on the brink

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Speaker 2: of switching their entire economies to cryptocurrency, but this was

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Speaker 2: never really true in retrospect. In fact, it was a

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Speaker 2: result of the effort of crypto boosters making it seem

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Speaker 2: like the currency was far more popular abroad than it

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Speaker 2: actually was. After the Ethereum boom came the NFTs, a

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Speaker 2: crypto gateway of sorts that was something of a play

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Speaker 2: to get normies into crypto that seemed to work pretty

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Speaker 2: well at the time for a couple minutes at least.

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Speaker 2: You probably remember this. NFTs were a craze in the

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Speaker 2: early twenty twenties, which happens to be another time of

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Speaker 2: incredible economic despair in which people paid for quote unquote

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Speaker 2: true digital objects, which many, including me, thought meant that

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Speaker 2: you were buying the copy, the definitive copy of a

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Speaker 2: digital artwork. And so, in the early days of its

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Speaker 2: mainstream popularity, NFTs expanded to the sale of memes. We've

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Speaker 2: actually talked about it on this show before in our

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Speaker 2: Overly Attached Girlfriend episode.

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Speaker 1: There was this.

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Speaker 2: Small boom where the major main characters of the two

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Speaker 2: thousands and the twenty tens took the chance to monetize

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Speaker 2: their image that in most cases had been involuntarily taken

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Speaker 2: and co opted from them, and actually made money off

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Speaker 2: of them.

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Speaker 1: For the first time.

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Speaker 2: However, as Danielson's documentary explains in great detail, NFTs ended

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Speaker 2: up being a scam of their own. It was a

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Speaker 2: way to imply scarcity about an infinitely reproducible image, and

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Speaker 2: NFTs became synonymous with art during this boom in the

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Speaker 2: early twenty twenties, first coming into the news when an

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Speaker 2: artist named people Fine sold sixty nine million dollars worth

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Speaker 2: of NFTs.

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Speaker 1: What's even more.

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Speaker 2: Relevant, though, is that this sale was made at legacy

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Speaker 2: auction house Christie's, which gave a whiff of legitimacy to

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Speaker 2: the project that na fs previously had not had by

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Speaker 2: a long shot. NFT ended up being the crypto version

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Speaker 2: of the speculation market or the collector's market, which always crashes.

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Speaker 2: The example that comes right to mind for me is

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Speaker 2: beanie babies. When they're first released, you can get them

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Speaker 2: for about five to seven dollars.

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Speaker 1: Once they retire, the value goes up.

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Speaker 8: In like two years, there were like two hundred and

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Speaker 8: forty five dollars.

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Speaker 9: Stuff.

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Speaker 1: Thing's worth about four thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: But it goes far back as the tulip bulbspec bubble

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Speaker 2: of the seventeenth century. We've been overvaluing things that are

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Speaker 2: ultimately kind of trash.

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Speaker 1: For a long time.

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Speaker 2: NFTs were perceived as exclusive collectibles, which on most timeline

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Speaker 2: spoils down to I hope you actually like them, because

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Speaker 2: they almost never retain their value. Thankfully, I love my

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Speaker 2: beanie babies, and I don't care that my mom sent

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Speaker 2: my college fund on them. In line goes up. Jan

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Speaker 2: Olsen also emphasizes that the marks and the targets for

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Speaker 2: these cryptos scams aren't the fabulously wealthy that we see

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Speaker 2: in media. The marks are people somewhere in the middle class,

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Speaker 2: people with some disposable income who are still long term

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Speaker 2: financially insecure enough that they'd take a risk on something

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Speaker 2: as tenuous as.

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Speaker 1: A crypto scam.

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Speaker 2: As Olsen puts it, the target of these scams are

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Speaker 2: quote tenuously middle class, socially isolated, and highly responsive to memes.

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Speaker 2: While this was happening, Haley Welch graduated high school in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, beginning

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Speaker 2: community college but dropping out to focus on her day job.

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Speaker 2: As we've talked about before, Haley loved her home, her family,

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Speaker 2: her friends, but unquestionably grew up during a time of

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Speaker 2: extreme economic and social precarity. It would probably be hard

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Speaker 2: for her to remember a time before bad job markets

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Speaker 2: and gun safety drills to evade mass shootings in school,

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Speaker 2: when all the while, the way to quote unquote make

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Speaker 2: it in America was shifting from the conventional become a

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Speaker 2: star model to the Internet version of the become a

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Speaker 2: star model, become a star, get your grift in, and

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Speaker 2: get the fuck out of there, which brings us to

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Speaker 2: meme coins. Meme coins are a newer form of crypto

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Speaker 2: that are famously unstable and scammy, and saying something is

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Speaker 2: particularly scammy in the crypto world is really saying something.

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Speaker 1: Meme coins are exactly what they sound like.

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Speaker 2: There are a currency whose relevance depends on the appeal

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Speaker 2: of the meme personality who is the face of them,

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Speaker 2: whether that meme is a person or a fictional character

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Speaker 2: or an idea. The most successful examples, and one that

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Speaker 2: I think has tragically crossed into the mainstream, is the

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk touted doge coin, which is based on a

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Speaker 2: meme of Ashiba Nu who bless his heart, he didn't

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Speaker 2: see the storm coming. Meme coins of this nature tend

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Speaker 2: to be sold as crypto on the bizarrely and I

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Speaker 2: guess aptly named website pump dot fun, and the name

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Speaker 2: itself is a wink at how many pump and dump

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Speaker 2: schemes the space has been known for over the years.

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Speaker 2: The site was started by three guys in their twenties

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Speaker 2: in London, and this was a space that sort of

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Speaker 2: facilitated the resurgence of crypto after NFTs sort of took

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Speaker 2: a turn.

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Speaker 1: In the early twenty twenties.

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Speaker 2: The New York Times reported that in the front half

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, one point seven million coins launched,

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Speaker 2: compared to just two hundred and fifty thousand ish in

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Speaker 2: the same period of time in twenty twenty three. So

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Speaker 2: if you've heard about meme coins more.

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Speaker 1: It's certainly not an accident.

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Speaker 2: And stars of the twenty twenty four space outside of Haley,

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Speaker 2: whose eventual coin was called hawk Coin, were Maga coin,

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Speaker 2: ear Coin after Donald Trump got shot in the ear,

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Speaker 2: Baby Trump coin.

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Speaker 6: One of the coolest parts of my job being able

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Speaker 6: to do this every day is seeing different projects. And

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Speaker 6: I love these Trump meme coins that have come out,

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Speaker 6: like Maga uh and obviously now baby Trump that's the

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Speaker 6: one that I am sharing with you now. And you

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Speaker 6: know what, it makes you smile what?

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Speaker 2: And there are celebrity coins. Manisphere influencer and convicted criminal

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Speaker 2: Andrew Tait launched a coin called daddy Coin. Flop rapper

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Speaker 2: Iggy Azilia started one called mother Coin, there was one

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Speaker 2: called tom and Jelly. You name a cursed idea, someone

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Speaker 2: probably tried to launch it as a meme coin last year.

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Speaker 2: So even though crypto fell out of favor in a

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Speaker 2: major way in twenty twenty two, pump dot Fun and

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Speaker 2: these meme coins had a big hand in bringing them

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Speaker 2: back because of how easy this website made it to

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Speaker 2: get a crypto coin minted for as low as two dollars,

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Speaker 2: perhaps a bone chilling ai image of baby Trump and boom,

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Speaker 2: You've created the stupidest new economy on the planet. But

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Speaker 2: because the barrier to entry for making meme coins is

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Speaker 2: so low, this space tends to bring in new people

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Speaker 2: to crypto, which, as we will learn, is kind of

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Speaker 2: the perfect setup for a rug pole. In short, a

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Speaker 2: rug pole is a pretty basic crypto scam that basically

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Speaker 2: consists of overhyping the eventual value of a meme coin,

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Speaker 2: promising a lot, and then pulling the rug out from investors,

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Speaker 2: selling off all of the valuable assets of the token

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Speaker 2: well in advance, so that everyone else is more or

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Speaker 2: less complex completely screwed over shortly after the token launches

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Speaker 2: and the value crashes. I'll let my guests explain it better,

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Speaker 2: but that's the idea.

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Speaker 1: If you're a.

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Speaker 2: Fan of a certain meme or personality, or for some

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Speaker 2: reason Iggy Azalea, you could cash in on the popularity

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Speaker 2: of a meme to lurein investors. The average of whom

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Speaker 2: as Danielsen says, is a middle class person throwing in

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Speaker 2: around three hundred and fifty dollars on average, then pulling

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Speaker 2: the rug and causing them to lose it all. But

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Speaker 2: here's a weird thing that was striking me the more

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Speaker 2: I looked into this world. Even the most starter crypto

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Speaker 2: investors seem to have a basic understanding that crypto is,

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Speaker 2: to some extent a scam for most people. The true

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Speaker 2: rug pull, I think is the average investor finding out

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Speaker 2: that they're not the scammer, they're the scammed. And I

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Speaker 2: know that plenty of people have said that if you

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Speaker 2: get scammed by like hawked to a girl or baby Trump,

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Speaker 2: then you deserve everything that happens to you. And maybe

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Speaker 2: for you that's true. But for the purposes of this episode,

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Speaker 2: I want to hold some empathies for these people because

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Speaker 2: they are being targeted out of desperation. So before we

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Speaker 2: get back to Haley Welch, it wouldn't be a fair

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Speaker 2: discussion of cryptocurrency without acknowledging how gigantic and needless crypto's

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Speaker 2: environmental impact is in exchange for what it does for

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Speaker 2: the world, which is very little.

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Speaker 9: If you wanted to be a crypto miner in the

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Speaker 9: twenty tens, your home computer might be enough to get

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Speaker 9: you started. Today you need a bunch of specialized, very

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Speaker 9: powerful computers. They're known as mining rigs, and they use

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Speaker 9: a stunning amount of electricity.

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Speaker 2: So if you're listening and you're into crypto, know that

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Speaker 2: you are contributing to this problem, which is kind of

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Speaker 2: ironic because helping the environment was one of the early

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Speaker 2: claims that crypto advocates made in its early years. They

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Speaker 2: would cite how much energy and natural resources that conventional

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Speaker 2: banking generated in comparison, and sure, big banks suck up

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Speaker 2: a lot of energy, and that is a valid criticism,

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Speaker 2: but crypto takes up a lot more energy per person.

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Speaker 2: A UN report from twenty twenty three indicated that bitcoin

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Speaker 2: mining consumed more energy than the entire country of Pakistan

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Speaker 2: in the year twenty twenty one. So I usually save

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Speaker 2: interviews for the ends of these episodes, but there is

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Speaker 2: truly no one better to shepherd us through the world

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Speaker 2: of crypto than Molly White, a prolific writer and investigator

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Speaker 2: of crypto. So I'm going to let her set us

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Speaker 2: up and we'll hear from her throughout the episode.

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Speaker 10: I'm Mollie. I am a crypto researcher and writer. I've

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Speaker 10: been following the crypto industry for several years now.

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Speaker 11: What brought you to this specialty?

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Speaker 10: I got started in twenty twenty one. I think when

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Speaker 10: crypto is going through its major sort of retail moments,

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Speaker 10: where it seemed like, you know, every news article was

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Speaker 10: about crypto, and there were ads everywhere, and people were

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Speaker 10: being told that they needed to buy bitcoin or NFTs

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Speaker 10: or dogecoin or something like that in order to get

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Speaker 10: ahead and to make a ton of money and you know,

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Speaker 10: buy their lambos.

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Speaker 12: And around that same time.

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Speaker 10: There was a lot of talk about how blockchains and

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Speaker 10: cryptocurrencies were going to sort of revolutionize the Web and

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Speaker 10: fix everything that's wrong with the Web. And I've always

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Speaker 10: been a big web nerd. I was, you know, a

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Speaker 10: software engineer. I have my own complaints about the Web

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Speaker 10: as someone who really loves it ultimately, but you know,

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Speaker 10: has has watched it become this very sort of hyper

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Speaker 10: capitalized landscape. And so initially I was like, great, let's

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Speaker 10: fix the Web. I'm in you know, when I was

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Speaker 10: hearing all this stuff about Web three. But then I

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Speaker 10: actually started to dig into it and learn more about

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Speaker 10: it and discovered that, like, wow, a lot of people

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Speaker 10: are getting scammed and it doesn't feel like anyone is

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Speaker 10: talking about it at the time. There are a lot

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Speaker 10: of these like profiles with people who are making it

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Speaker 10: rich overnight, and you know, the dogecoin millionaire and all

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Speaker 10: this stuff, and there was like nobody talking about the

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Speaker 10: downsides of it, which were far more I think important

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Speaker 10: and widespread.

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Speaker 11: For the tech illiterate. What is web three?

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Speaker 12: Well, it doesn't.

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Speaker 10: Really have a very specific definition, which I think is

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Speaker 10: part of the point. I think, generally speaking, web three

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Speaker 10: is just a word that describes taking blockchains and applying

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Speaker 10: them to web problems. So trying to build well web

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Speaker 10: services where the blockchain involved is going to be a

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Speaker 10: web three project.

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Speaker 2: Just based on the way I've seen crypto talked about

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Speaker 2: in the last several years, I kind of inherently associate

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Speaker 2: it with elon scams. Basically, I think of now there

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Speaker 2: is this sort of like known influencer to cryptoscam pipeline.

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Speaker 2: When did you first notice this tendency?

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Speaker 10: Yeah, I think the whole trend of celebrities getting involved

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Speaker 10: with crypto projects kicked off sort of around the time

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Speaker 10: I started paying attention. It had happened before that, So

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Speaker 10: you know, in twenty seventeen, there was this huge explosion

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Speaker 10: of what we're called icos, which is similar to an

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Speaker 10: ipo where a company goes public and suddenly everyone can

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Speaker 10: buy the stock, but you do it with crypto tokens,

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Speaker 10: and the idea was like, now you don't have to

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Speaker 10: go through the SEC registration process, which is extremely challenging

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Speaker 10: and onerous and helpful at preventing scams. There were celebrities

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Speaker 10: who got involved in that. You know, at that point

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Speaker 10: they were like, we're going to be ico investors, but

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Speaker 10: it was a pretty niche thing, like not that many

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Speaker 10: people are that excited about icos or IPOs for that matter.

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Speaker 10: But then in twenty twenty, yeah, I would say twenty twenty,

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Speaker 10: twenty twenty one, we saw a lot of celebrities getting

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Speaker 10: excited about crypto as not just a way to make money,

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Speaker 10: although that certainly was a big part of it, but

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Speaker 10: to sort of promote themselves and to monetize their brands.

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Speaker 10: And so there were celebrity NFTs, there were celebrities getting

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Speaker 10: involved in all of these Web three projects that people

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Speaker 10: were talking about. We saw like Reese Witherspoon changing her

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Speaker 10: Twitter profile picture to like a World of Women n

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Speaker 10: f T.

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Speaker 12: Yeah, like a lot of people have forgot about that.

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Speaker 11: NFTs. Yeah exactly.

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Speaker 10: Basketball players were launching NFTs, and you know, celebrities, a

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Speaker 10: lot of like sort of dalists like Soldier Boy.

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Speaker 2: I think there was like a Super Bowl celebrity crypto

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Speaker 2: ad one year that I remember being like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is like really a thing.

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Speaker 10: Well yeah, and that's the other part of it is

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Speaker 10: that celebrities were being used to promote crypto exchanges and

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Speaker 10: things like that. It was like the crypto super Bowl,

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Speaker 10: but it was basically just before the collapse. Things like

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Speaker 10: really Pee with Crypto dot Com had an ad featuring

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Speaker 10: Matt Damon, FTX had an ad with Larry David. You know,

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Speaker 10: it was like this really weird moment where like, yeah,

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Speaker 10: suddenly all of these celebrities were involved. NFTs kind of

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Speaker 10: fell apart and have I guess been sort of having

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Speaker 10: a little bit of a revival. But I feel like

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Speaker 10: the biggest trend recently has been these meme coins, which

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Speaker 10: is like you don't even have to bother getting an

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Speaker 10: artist involved. You just make a token with your name

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Speaker 10: and then you promote it, and you know it's like

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Speaker 10: less work basically, and you can still make a bunch

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Speaker 10: of money off of it, or at least that's the claim.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna check in with Molly More later to talk

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Speaker 2: about hawkcoin style scams specifically. But let's get back into

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Speaker 2: Haley Welch's chaotic end to twenty twenty four when we

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Speaker 2: come back Cryptua.

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Speaker 13: Maybe welcome back to sixteenth minute.

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Speaker 2: The Constant is the best episode of Lost. I know

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Speaker 2: it's a popular opinion, but it's my opinion as well.

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Speaker 2: And the best line read of all time from Lost

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Speaker 2: is from season one, episode eighteen.

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Speaker 12: Haley talks to her about Sam hearing something and this

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Speaker 12: is when she says.

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Speaker 1: You took and bit the numbers.

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Speaker 12: Yes, you took and bit the nimbus.

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Speaker 2: She's supposed to be Australian. Shout out to Mike's Mike

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Speaker 2: And here's the moment you've all been waiting for the

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Speaker 2: hawk to a crypto scam.

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Speaker 5: So after I saw Michael Saylor speak at the bitcoin conference,

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Speaker 5: I have decided to start putting some money into crypto.

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Speaker 5: And I just want to say, oh my god, thank

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Speaker 5: you so much, mister Saylor.

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Speaker 2: Last week we talked through Haley's media career as the

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Speaker 2: choice talent of Jake Paul's sports gambling network Better Hailey

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Speaker 2: was the host of Hawktua, and throughout this time her

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Speaker 2: future as a crypto girly was teased in the background.

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Speaker 2: What was also teased was the fact that Haley personally

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Speaker 2: did not seem to understand how crypto worked.

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Speaker 12: Oh yeah, can I give you some tokens?

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Speaker 4: Okay?

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Speaker 1: Are you sure you're I don't know.

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Speaker 12: I'm not a big a fan about mean coins. I

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Speaker 12: love crypto, but but you could make some money from it.

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Speaker 14: There's no doubt about it, no doubt about it.

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Speaker 5: I'm very new to it and I'm still learning what

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Speaker 5: it is.

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Speaker 2: This episode of Talk to It, the penultimate ever, has

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Speaker 2: Mark Cuban as a guest, the famous billionaire who's just

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Speaker 2: as famously pro crypto. So this was the perfect opportunity

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Speaker 2: for Haley and her team to tease her interest in

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Speaker 2: crypto on her show. The idea of Haley somehow getting

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Speaker 2: involved in crypto had been bandied about as early as

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Speaker 2: her Bill Maher interview back in July, but when it's

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Speaker 2: brought up with Cuban a few months later, Hailey had

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Speaker 2: already been teasing a pivot to the crypto space for months,

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Speaker 2: both in her appearances and in her online presence. Right

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Speaker 2: around November, when Trump was re elected, Hailey welch her

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Speaker 2: team and whoever is co authoring these damn x posts

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Speaker 2: starts to heavily foreshadow the eventual meme coin that she

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Speaker 2: will launch the next month.

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Speaker 5: So, I've been in the main trenches for a while,

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Speaker 5: and here's why I got so far.

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Speaker 15: My'll wallet when on busted US phone and.

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Speaker 2: Once it's announced, it keeps going with sports betting bro

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Speaker 2: Jake Paul. So by the time Jake Paul fights Mike

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Speaker 2: Tyson on Netflix on November fifteenth, Hailey is in the audience,

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Speaker 2: masked off, trying to court Elon Musk in front facic

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Speaker 2: videos at the boxing match.

440
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 5: How do I get a job in this apartment of

441
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 5: government of Can I leave the main?

442
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 2: A few minutes later, still at the boxing match, she's

443
00:26:54,680 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 2: talking about NFTs.

444
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 7: Sun the mine.

445
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, how rude of me?

446
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 11: Enough to us?

447
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 2: And the day after her interest in naivete surrounding crypto

448
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 2: is teased in the Mark Cuban episode of Talk Toua,

449
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: she formally announces Hawk coin on her ex profile.

450
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 12: Okay, y'all drop your Salona wallets.

451
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 5: I'm giving out some main coins for free, coming to

452
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 5: you December four.

453
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 2: And as I alluded to last week, I can't guarantee

454
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 2: that nothing has been deleted from her other platforms regarding

455
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: this crypto launch, but it seems as if she only

456
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: announced a coin on x, leaving her more relatable platforms

457
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 2: as it were, Instagram, TikTok et, cetera empty of a mention,

458
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 2: although of course Instagram stories are possible. On November twenty sixth,

459
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: more details are announced. Haley has partnered with a group

460
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 2: called over Here, accompanied by another truly heinous aiimage.

461
00:27:58,320 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: The announcement reads.

462
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 7: Big announcement, we are excited to partner with Haley Welch,

463
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 7: the Internet's favorite meme queen behind the viral Hawk to

464
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 7: a girl meme, to launch Hawk, a mean coin that's

465
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 7: set to redefine the crypto space. Why Hawk is special?

466
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 7: This isn't just another token launch. Haley's launch of the

467
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 7: Hawk mean coin represents a meaningful step in bringing mainstream

468
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 7: audiences to the crypto world, protecting the community with free

469
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 7: token distributions and allow list campaigns. Fans who are newcomers

470
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 7: to crypto, We'll get to experience the blockchain in a

471
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 7: safer way.

472
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: You get it.

473
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 2: This is the one meme coin that definitely isn't a scam.

474
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: And they note that they're.

475
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 2: Aware that a lot of Haley's audience knows nothing about crypto,

476
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 2: so they want to make this easy as possible. Then

477
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 2: they get to the timeline what's next.

478
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 7: November twenty sixth, Today, Haley officially announced the launch of

479
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 7: Hawk on x and on her podcast episode with Mark Cuban.

480
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 7: November twenty sixth through December third, allow list registration opened

481
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 7: for free token claims. December fourth, at five pm Eastern

482
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 7: Standard time, Hawk begins trading on Solana.

483
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 2: Haley spoke to TMZ ahead of the release of Hawkcoin

484
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 2: and implied that her motivation to get involved in crypto

485
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: was similar to her motivation to become an influencer in

486
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 2: the first place, because if she didn't do it, someone

487
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 2: else would, and it was rumored that other people in

488
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 2: the meme coin space already were Anyways, it reminds me

489
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 2: a lot of how part of the reason she came

490
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 2: public as the Hawk Tua girl was because other people

491
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 2: were claiming her identity falsely. Anyways, she tells TMZ the

492
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 2: Paper of Record, that she wanted to go into crypto

493
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: to combat quote a bunch of impostors unquote who'd launched

494
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 2: their own meme coins claiming to be her. So again,

495
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 2: this pattern of scam before you get scammed. But Haley

496
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 2: also knows that she has to sell her fans on

497
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 2: the idea that hawkcoin is a good investment, so she

498
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 2: closes out the interview by pitching this as a great

499
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 2: opportunity for the community.

500
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 15: It's a really good way to get all my fans

501
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 15: in community to interact and come together.

502
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: Babe Icarus, look out.

503
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 2: Molly White tells me that as absurd as this sounds

504
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 2: to the uninitiated, this is a pretty straightforward cryptogrift. The

505
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 2: meme coin phenomenon is fascinating to me, I mean, because

506
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: it seems like they are relatively successful in a niche way.

507
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 11: How why I like.

508
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends a little bit

509
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 10: on how you define success. They can be lucrative for

510
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 10: the people who launch them, Certainly, they are very rarely

511
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 10: lucrative for those who buy them. You know, there is

512
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 10: this sort of brief period of time with meme coins that.

513
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 10: You know, they tend to follow a very similar pattern,

514
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,479
Speaker 10: which is they launch, they spike in price, and then

515
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 10: they crash or they crash and then they sort of

516
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 10: peter along for a while. As you know, people lose

517
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 10: interests and there are a lot of people who are

518
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 10: very excited about them because that for that brief moment

519
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 10: at the beginning, if you can generate enough interest and

520
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 10: enough excitement around them, people look at it and they go, Okay,

521
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 10: if I can buy in early enough, I can be

522
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 10: the person who dumps on everybody else and makes a

523
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 10: bunch of money.

524
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 2: Right how it feels like customers are encouraged to like

525
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 2: get in on the grift of like get here early,

526
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: and then you can scam others just like you.

527
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a very cynical model, but that is basically

528
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 10: how it works.

529
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 5: You know.

530
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 10: There are certainly some meme coins that sort of like

531
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 10: broke containment and became more of a mainstream crypto. So

532
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 10: like dogecoin is a good example of one of those,

533
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 10: Like it's based around a meme but it has a

534
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 10: price that has not gone to zero and stayed there.

535
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 10: But most meme coins are just this sort of flash

536
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 10: in the pan thing, and people very rarely look at

537
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 10: them and say this is a good business investment, or

538
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 10: this is a good long term holding that I'm going

539
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 10: to sell in four years and have made a tidy profit.

540
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 10: You need to get in on the ground floor and

541
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 10: get out as quickly as you can because you know

542
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 10: it's going to go to zero.

543
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 12: You know nothing's going to be left after that.

544
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 2: On December third, the last episode of Talk to A

545
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 2: comes out, episode twelve entitled How Not to Get Canceled,

546
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: And on December fourth, hawk cooin and yes, I would

547
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 2: agree that it should have been called spitcoin launches with

548
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 2: a fair amount of dubious reception preceding it, but on

549
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 2: x Haley is excited.

550
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 11: My hawk name coin is love.

551
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 2: Writer for Fortune magazine Leo Schwartz led his piece about

552
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 2: the crypto with the headline.

553
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 7: Talk to a girl. Hailey Welch launches crypto meme coin

554
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 7: but insists it's not a cash grab.

555
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 2: This would not turn out to be true. Well, hawkcoin

556
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 2: took off upon its life launch, swaring to half a

557
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: billion dollars in coin valuation during its first few hours.

558
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 2: The scam quickly revealed itself. The crash came swiftly, as

559
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 2: crypto power users often called snipers, abruptly picked off hawk

560
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 2: Coin's value, leaving basically nothing for the first time crypto

561
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 2: users that Haley's image was used to advertise to, and

562
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 2: the blowback for this rug pull was swift. While the

563
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: final numbers have not been confirmed, it seems that Haley's

564
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 2: team had made somewhere in the neighborhood of three million

565
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: dollars off of this scheme, which played out in under

566
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 2: a day, and.

567
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: Haley Welch, who we know has no.

568
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 2: Experience in the crypto space, copy and paste what her

569
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 2: crypto in legal team sends in an x post in

570
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 2: an attempt to curb criticism a crypto release which a

571
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 2: big account called out as being ninety six percent controlled

572
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 2: by Hailey's team in order to artificially inflate the worth

573
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 2: of the coin. Haley's tweet denied this, leading to a

574
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 2: delightful community note that explained that the team had been

575
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 2: selling hawk Coin to bigger investors well before the launch

576
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 2: through pre sales, saying the.

577
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: Following, Haley is lying and will likely have to talk

578
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: to a judge about this. Okay, you can play the

579
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: horns for that.

580
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 2: Because of the mainstream fame that Haley had a mask

581
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 2: throughout twenty twenty four. This news broke pretty quickly to

582
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 2: the mainstream media as well.

583
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 8: A viral meme coin tied to Hawktua star Hailey Welch

584
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 8: is at the center of a lawsuit. Investigators rather investors,

585
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 8: claim the Hawk token promoted using Welch's fame wasn't properly

586
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 8: registered as a security. The lawsuit targets the Hawk tokens

587
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 8: creators and promoters, but not Welsh herself.

588
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 2: This kind of rug pull isn't unusual in the famously

589
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: scammy meme coin space, but the scale and the mainstream

590
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 2: popularity of its subject was unique, and because of this,

591
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:16,359
Speaker 2: one of the Internet's most prevalent crypto fraud investigators, a

592
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 2: YouTuber named coffee Zilla aka Stephen Findeesen Stay with Me,

593
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 2: confronted both Haley over Here and Howie Mandel's villainous cryptosun

594
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 2: in law doc Hollywood about the obvious scam on the

595
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 2: night of December fourth, in a Twitter spaces conversation. As

596
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty two thousand users tuned in the

597
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 2: spaces conversation, which began as basically a fifteen minute lecture

598
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: from Doc Hollywood got tense pretty quickly when they opened

599
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 2: the floor for questions.

600
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 4: I have questions.

601
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 2: I have questions.

602
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 11: I'm raising my hand.

603
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 12: Take out.

604
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:54,800
Speaker 11: That's copy Zilla.

605
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 14: Hey, this is one of the most miserable, horrible launches

606
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 14: I've ever seen in my Okay.

607
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 2: It's not going well anyways, here's Doc Hollywood.

608
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 1: Profiting from the rugs relevant.

609
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 16: We didn't we didn't pull a rug. I don't know

610
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 16: what you're trying to say. It's not true. That's defamation.

611
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 16: The man you're saying that we pulled the rug. You're

612
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 16: the fabing are you?

613
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: Are you not gonna are you not gonna let me talk?

614
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 7: You just talk over me?

615
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 9: You talk over me.

616
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 2: I'm hearing both is now. What Doc Hollywood does not

617
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 2: know is that coffee Zilla was showing up to this

618
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 2: conversation with notes. He presses on the Good Doctor about

619
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: why Hawkcoin had been marketed at fans of Haley's who

620
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 2: had never invested in crypto before.

621
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 17: These are people that are outside of crypto that we're

622
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 17: going to be onboarding, and they don't give a ship.

623
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 17: They don't even know what a market cap is. They

624
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 17: just go, oh, cool, free coin.

625
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 16: Uh.

626
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 17: Now I get to join the community cool done.

627
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 2: In his video, coffee Zilla also explains that he had

628
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 2: acquired their initial pitch deck for hawkcoin, where the scam

629
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:05,840
Speaker 2: is all but encoded into the plan.

630
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 7: From one slide, Hawk will unite Haley's global fan base,

631
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 7: enabling fans to connect with each other through the talk

632
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 7: to a podcast, and social media. This token redefines mean

633
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 7: coin by offering a new class of consumer crypto.

634
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 2: Okay, pitch deck, let's do the for dummies version next slide.

635
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 7: Hawk will onboard normies, non crypto users by linking to

636
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 7: Web two social media, making it easy for Haley's fans

637
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 7: to create wallets via social login and claim free tokens.

638
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: Oh, so they're willing to admit they are intentionally targeting

639
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 2: a naive market. Suffice it to say that, like scams

640
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 2: before it, it appears that Haley's team designed the coin

641
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 2: to make a shitload of money for themselves upfront, and

642
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 2: then fuck anyone who is naive enough to buy it

643
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 2: when they're profiting. Inevitably made the value of the coin crash.

644
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 2: But even before coffee Zilla entered the chat the night

645
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 2: that the coin launched, the team was already on the defensive.

646
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,720
Speaker 2: While it's normal for a crypto rugpole to happen quickly,

647
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 2: it was still rare for it to have happened in

648
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 2: the space of a single day, and none of the

649
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: legally is that Halian company shouted out in their own

650
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 2: defense was particularly convincing. And while coffee Zilla was the

651
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 2: journalist to most explicitly break the scam down, the whole

652
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 2: crypto world was hissed about this from the moment that

653
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: token was announced and encourage those who had been scammed

654
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 2: to seek legal protection. This is a tweet from a

655
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 2: firm called Berwick Law who ended up becoming a major

656
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:44,720
Speaker 2: player in this story.

657
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 7: If you lost money on Hawk, contact our firm to

658
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 7: learn about your legal rights. Our firm represents thousands of

659
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 7: NFT and token investors in securities matters. This is attorney advertising.

660
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,399
Speaker 2: While by all accounts, this crypto scam is very commonplace,

661
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,720
Speaker 2: what makes it stand out is, as coffee Zilla said,

662
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:10,360
Speaker 2: it's targeting of first time crypto users in order to

663
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 2: rip them off, the mainstream nature of the mean personality

664
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:19,879
Speaker 2: and honestly, how flagrant doc Hollywood comes off in this

665
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 2: call with coffee Zilla, which went viral several times over

666
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 2: and I think rightfully. So, Howie Mandel's son in law

667
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 2: calls the people who invested in his crypto coin mentally ill.

668
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 17: Most of you, we don't want you in the community.

669
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 17: Let's be real, right, You're not great people. I know,

670
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 17: y'all right, I see some friendly faces in this audience.

671
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: He's having a melt out.

672
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 17: You know, you guys. I'm gonna say, y'all, you guys right,

673
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 17: there's a lot of negativity in the space. I think

674
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 17: crypto brings the mentally ill into this thing, right most

675
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,359
Speaker 17: if you guys are in crypto, you're most likely mentally ill.

676
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 17: And I'm gonna I'm going to count myself is mentally

677
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 17: ill for even being here right now.

678
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 2: So no one can look more unhinged than Doctor Showbiz here.

679
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 2: But Haley Welch obviously is not coming off well in

680
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 2: this call either. She barely says anything because she didn't

681
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:15,800
Speaker 2: orchestrate this scam.

682
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: She just represents it in a moment that is iconic.

683
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: You can't deny it.

684
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 2: At some point in this contentious conversation between a man

685
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 2: who identifies as coffee Zilla and a man who identifies

686
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 2: as Doc Hollywood, arguing about their make believe computer money

687
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 2: Haley's fight or flight instinct seems to kick in, and

688
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 2: since she doesn't know enough about crypto to fight a

689
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 2: journalist who specializes in crypto, she gets the fuck out

690
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,760
Speaker 2: of there in the funniest way possible, interrupting a different

691
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 2: journalist while doing so true like.

692
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 7: I guess I to interrupt you, Nick, Hello there, but

693
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 7: any who, I'm gonna go to bed and I'll see

694
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 7: you guys tomorrow.

695
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: Okay, She goes full cartoon chipmunk mode.

696
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 2: She gets the fuck out of there, and the Twitter

697
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 2: spaces press conference ends.

698
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: And believe it or not, that was the last.

699
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 2: We heard from Hailey Welch personally for weeks.

700
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: But as always, Haley.

701
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 2: Ducking out of the spotlight didn't make much of a difference.

702
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 2: The people who had gotten ripped off in the meme

703
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 2: coin scam were justifiably pissed, and a lot of other

704
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 2: online users seemed to relish in her fall for a

705
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 2: main character who they felt had overstayed her welcome and

706
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 2: maybe didn't even deserve the attention she'd gotten in the

707
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 2: first place. After the Coffee Zella video called Exposing the

708
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 2: Hawk to a Scam took off the day after the

709
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 2: rug Pole the media attention around Haley, Doc Hollywood and

710
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 2: Hawk Cooin skyrocketed, and Haley's publicist, you might remember he

711
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 2: is the same publicist who represents Bruce Springsteen, messaged coffee

712
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 2: Zilla after that Twitter spasis fiasco, telling him that Hailey

713
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 2: was essentially paid to promote the token instead of orchestrating

714
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 2: the scheme, going on to say that she received one

715
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for promoting it. When

716
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 2: Coffeezilla asked if Haley would see a cut of this

717
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:21,240
Speaker 2: pre sale money or the scammy three million dollar fees

718
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 2: that he had confronted the crypto team with, the publicist

719
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 2: said that after expenses were recouped, Hailey was supposed to

720
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,400
Speaker 2: have gotten fifty percent of net proceeds from the coin,

721
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 2: but that that agreement hadn't been finalized yet. But Coffeezilla

722
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 2: felt and I agree, that this is extremely vague and

723
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 2: does not specify if Hailey Welch would get these scam

724
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 2: proceeds to the tune of one point five million dollars

725
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,879
Speaker 2: if the crypto team managed to get away with this.

726
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 14: I don't know. I think this whole situation is terrible

727
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,720
Speaker 14: and she should feel bad. I hope she does, because

728
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,839
Speaker 14: she got in bed with these people who clearly saw

729
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 14: dollar signs. She saw dollar signs, and they did this

730
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 14: and people have been hurt.

731
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, we don't really know how Haley

732
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 2: feels about any of this, maybe because she doesn't care

733
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,439
Speaker 2: to stay, or maybe because she's kind of muzzled because

734
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 2: of the legal risk that saying anything could have, especially

735
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: in an industry she never had much of a grip on. Understandably,

736
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 2: the internet went nuts with the whole I'm gonna go

737
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 2: to bed moment, and then came the lawsuit, although at

738
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 2: the time of this writing it is just the crypto

739
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 2: team that's being sued, not Hailey Welch herself. On December nineteenth,

740
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 2: Berwick Law Remember them, sued the distributor for the coin,

741
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 2: the promoters for.

742
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: The coin, and thankfully.

743
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 2: Someone finally had the good sense to sue Doc motherfucking Hollywood.

744
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 2: And probably expectedly, when this lawsuit was filed, on behalf

745
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: of the people who had been scammed, over Here and

746
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 2: Doc Hollywood turned on each other abruptly.

747
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:10,720
Speaker 1: In a tweet.

748
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,720
Speaker 2: Over Here said that it was the Doc who controlled

749
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 2: all the fees in token decisions, not them, and to

750
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 2: the public's delight. Hailey Welch appeared to wake up from

751
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 2: that nap of hers a little over two weeks later,

752
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 2: on December twentieth, posting what is at the time of

753
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 2: this recording her final tweet.

754
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 15: I take this situation extremely seriously and want to address

755
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 15: my fans, the investors who have been affected in the

756
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 15: broader community. I'm fully cooperating with and I am committed

757
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 15: to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted as

758
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 15: well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible

759
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 15: parties accountable, and resolve the matter. If you have experienced

760
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 15: losses related to this, please contact Berwick Law is in

761
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 15: the link below.

762
00:44:56,200 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 2: And while Hailey continues to repost memes on TikTok, we

763
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 2: really hear from her as a personality. Is an unrelated

764
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 2: post on Instagram from late December which shows pictures from

765
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 2: a trip to Hawaii she took with Chelsea Bradford, her

766
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 2: best friend. They're kind of the Bonnie and Clyde of

767
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 2: internet fame. They're just riding it out to the bitter end.

768
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 2: At present, the case hasn't been decided, but the public's

769
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 2: response to seeing these scammers painted into a corner was

770
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: universally positive, and this positive reception seems to have empowered

771
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: Berwick Law to push even further.

772
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 1: Into the crypto scam space.

773
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 2: On January sixteenth, just a couple weeks ago, Wired reported

774
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: that the same firm was suing pump dot fun, the

775
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,879
Speaker 2: site that made it so easy to run mean coin

776
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 2: scams in the first place, and for the moment, that's

777
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,879
Speaker 2: where Haley's story ends. There's been a lot of disagreement

778
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 2: on whether Doc Hollywood and company will experience any meaningful

779
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 2: legal consequence for this, but what we do know is

780
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 2: that Hailey Welch herself doesn't seem to be legally on

781
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 2: the hook for anything, at least not right now. It

782
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 2: seems like maybe she just went back to bed. And

783
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 2: when we come back, Molly White's take on what this

784
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: shit show says about the future of crypto Welcome back

785
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,839
Speaker 2: to sixteenth minute. Please pause this episode and go to

786
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 2: the link in the description to give to a GoFundMe

787
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 2: for a middle class family in Alta, Dina that's lost

788
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 2: their home.

789
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:45,760
Speaker 1: I can wait.

790
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 2: Thank you, I did it too. And today we are

791
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 2: with deepest regrets, ending our Hactuas series by discussing the

792
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,839
Speaker 2: incredible speed run of our main carearacter of twenty twenty four,

793
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 2: Hailey Welch. To close out this episode, Here's the rest

794
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 2: of Molly White in my talk. She's the writer behind

795
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 2: Web three, is going just great citation needed, and is

796
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,439
Speaker 2: a prolific Wikipedia editor, a legend, and so I wanted

797
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 2: to ask her not just what she thought of the

798
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: hawk Coin scam, but what this means for the future

799
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 2: of these kinds of grifts, because I don't know if

800
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 2: you've noticed, but the sitting American President seems thrilled about them.

801
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: Here's our talk which.

802
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 11: Brings us to hawk Tua and hawk Coin.

803
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 12: I believe it is.

804
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 2: As this summer went on, I was observing Hailey Welch's journey.

805
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 2: I'm curious because it's sort of escalated to this recent cryptogrift.

806
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 2: Are there certain things to look out for? Are there

807
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 2: warning signs that a viral star is going to start

808
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 2: a cryptogrift before the grift is announced?

809
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 4: Well?

810
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:58,919
Speaker 10: I wouldn't say there always are, but there certainly were

811
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 10: with Hailey Welch, because you know, I heard of her

812
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 10: around the time the original meme went viral, and then

813
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 10: I forgot about her, and then the next time I

814
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 10: heard about her was in July when she turned up

815
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 10: to the Bitcoin twenty twenty four conference in Nashville and

816
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 10: was like rubbing elbows with RFK Junior all of a sudden,

817
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 10: and people were like, oh my god, the Hawk Tua

818
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 10: girl is at the Bitcoin conference and I was like, oh, no,

819
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 10: here we go, you know, And she had, by that point,

820
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 10: I think, maybe started her podcast and was, you know,

821
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 10: clearly trying to make her fifteen minutes fifteen seconds of fame,

822
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,919
Speaker 10: I guess, into this bigger brand and you know, make

823
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 10: it into maybe a lucrative I don't know if career

824
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 10: is the word, but certainly, you know, make some money

825
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 10: off of it. And that is always a sign that

826
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 10: you know, meme coins maybe in the future, and then

827
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 10: certainly once they start hanging out in the crypto worlds,

828
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 10: you probably could have that easy money on that that

829
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 10: she would eventually get to this.

830
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 11: For me, the red flag was the station with the

831
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,280
Speaker 11: Paul brothers. They they only have bad.

832
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 10: Ideas, and they have a long history of crypto scams

833
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 10: as well. I mean they've been in that since the

834
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 10: ground floor, basically offloading NFTs and things like that on

835
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 10: their fans.

836
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 2: Going up to the actual grift. Can you walk me

837
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 2: through how this was done and what if anything differentiates

838
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 2: the hawk to a grift from another crypto grift.

839
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 10: Yeah, so there's kind of a handful of ways that

840
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 10: people start meme coins. It's become very easy to do

841
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 10: so over the last year or so because there have

842
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 10: been these platforms, including one that's called pump dot fun,

843
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 10: which is like a very popular platform where anyone can

844
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 10: launch a meme coin in a matter of minutes, and

845
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,240
Speaker 10: it's really sort of reduced that sort of technical barrier

846
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 10: to entry that previously existed and has certainly helped to

847
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 10: fuel this explosion in meme coins where it seems like,

848
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 10: you know, something happens and suddenly there's twenty me coins

849
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 10: based around it within a span of minutes. Because you know,

850
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 10: the sort of point is to get as much media

851
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 10: attention as possible, and so if you can be the

852
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 10: first person to sort of glom onto a viral moment,

853
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 10: then you can potentially make money. Or at least that's

854
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:13,800
Speaker 10: the theory.

855
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 2: It feels more like it's a it's a like pr

856
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 2: challenge more than anything else.

857
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 10: Oh for sure, that's one hundred percent the case, and

858
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 10: so the way that you know, celebrity meme coins. The

859
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 10: work is a little bit varied because often it's not

860
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,280
Speaker 10: the celebrities themselves, you know, sitting down at a computer

861
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 10: and designing this token. There's often some sort of a

862
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 10: partnership with supposedly experienced people in this world who are

863
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 10: the ones you know, designing the tokenomics, which is what

864
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,279
Speaker 10: they like to call the sort of distribution schemes and

865
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 10: things like that. People who speak the language of the

866
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 10: crypto world have made quite a lot of money off

867
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 10: of sort of offering to be a conduit for celebrities

868
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:56,799
Speaker 10: and take all of the hard stuff off of their

869
00:50:56,840 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 10: plate basically, and all they have to do is endorse

870
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 10: it and promote it on Twitter and take their cut

871
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 10: at the end of the day. And that seems to

872
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 10: be what happened here with the Hawktua girl, where you know,

873
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 10: she was not the one on Pumped Up Fun you know,

874
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 10: typing in the parameters and all that, but she was

875
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 10: working with this group of promoters who promised to sort

876
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 10: of help her with the hard stuff.

877
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,720
Speaker 2: Is there a particular reason why she is being singled

878
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 2: out and called out if this happens all the time.

879
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 10: I mean, I would argue that probably more people should

880
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 10: be singled out and called out total types of things. Yeah,

881
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 10: because her particular grift was I think not particularly unique.

882
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 10: It's not clear to me that she is personally culpable

883
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 10: in a way that more meme coin creators maybe, But

884
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 10: she's certainly been a fun target for a lot of

885
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 10: people who are angry about.

886
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:47,760
Speaker 12: You know, this particular scam.

887
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 10: But I think a lot of it is really just

888
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 10: the jokes. You know, it's it's fun to make jokes

889
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 10: about Hawk to a girl, and you know, she's been

890
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 10: sort of portrayed as this villain because it's kind of

891
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 10: funny to say that, like, Hawk to a girl just

892
00:51:57,640 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 10: stole all your money in ways that maybe it's not

893
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 10: with just any general meme coin.

894
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 2: What was done here is so clearly a scam and

895
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,839
Speaker 2: is so clearly wrong, but I just wasn't sure if

896
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 2: it was uniquely wrong or if this is the playbook.

897
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 10: Yeah, I was actually just talking to someone about this.

898
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 10: Where in the crypto world, things like this happen so

899
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 10: often that I think people often forget that they're illegal.

900
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 10: Pumping numps are actually like illegal thing to do wash trading,

901
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 10: which is where you sort of fake buying and selling

902
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 10: of tokens to increase the price and to sort of

903
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 10: make it look more popular than it is. That's illegal,

904
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 10: but it's so common in the crypto world and it's

905
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 10: so rarely enforced that it's like it has become this

906
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 10: accepted way of doing business in the crypto world. That's

907
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 10: sort of what we're seeing here, where like, yeah, pumping

908
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 10: and dumping is illegal, rug pulling is illegal, it's also

909
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,839
Speaker 10: an everyday occurrence, and the two things are not sort

910
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 10: of mutually exclusive. I think you see that a lot

911
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 10: with even when it comes to enforcement cases and legal action,

912
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 10: where people are like, I can't believe you're singling out

913
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,919
Speaker 10: Kim Kardashian or something like that, like because what she's

914
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 10: doing is so common. You know, when she was targeted

915
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:12,360
Speaker 10: by the SEC because she was doing paid promotions for

916
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 10: cryptotokens without disclosing she was being compensated. But like, if

917
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,280
Speaker 10: you look at crypto Twitter, that's all you're seeing.

918
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 12: That's every day.

919
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 10: Stuff, and so it almost feels unfair to be targeted

920
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,400
Speaker 10: for that when it's so rarely enforced, And honestly, you

921
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 10: could probably make an argument that it is unfair, but

922
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 10: part of the regulatory regime is trying to sort of

923
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 10: make an example of people to try to deter others

924
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 10: from doing similar activity. And so that's why you tend

925
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 10: to see these legal actions coming out against the Kim

926
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 10: Kardashians of the world and not some no name cryptos camera.

927
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 2: Our case is like this an opportunity to set a

928
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 2: higher precedent. Do you see cases like this altering the

929
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 2: types of griffs we're going to see?

930
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:55,919
Speaker 12: I suspect not with this one.

931
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,280
Speaker 10: For what I would be kind of surprised if legal

932
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 10: action comes of it. I know some people have speculated that, like, oh,

933
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 10: hawk to a girl's going to jail, and again it's

934
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 10: a part of the joke, and it's it's a funny idea.

935
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 10: But in the grand scheme of meme coin disasters, this

936
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 10: one was pretty small. Again, it's not clear to me

937
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 10: how much intent Haley Welch herself had around scamming her

938
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 10: fans beyond the sort of normal amount of scam that's

939
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 10: involved with meme coins. I don't necessarily expect the SEC

940
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 10: to like come out and make a big example of

941
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:33,399
Speaker 10: Hailey Welch, especially right now with political changes and regulatory

942
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 10: changes that are looking to even further decrease how many

943
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 10: enforcement cases the SEC brings against crypto projects. And so

944
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 10: I suspect that, you know, this is all a fun

945
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 10: laugh and I don't think it will really meaningfully change

946
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,320
Speaker 10: how many people start these projects. In fact, I suspect

947
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 10: there are people out there looking at Haley Welch and going,

948
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 10: maybe I could do something.

949
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 11: A shot, Yes, sort of.

950
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:00,399
Speaker 10: In all, publicity is good publicity aspect to this well,

951
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,720
Speaker 10: and I think that it should probably be a lesson

952
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 10: to celebrities who are considering getting involved with this. They

953
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 10: I'm sure many celebrities have received outreach from these types

954
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,120
Speaker 10: of people who work with celebrities to launch meme coins,

955
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:17,000
Speaker 10: who probably don't pitch this as a scam to the celebrities.

956
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 10: You know, they use all the talking points about how

957
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 10: this is a great way to engage with your fans

958
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 10: and to create a community around your meme coin, And

959
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 10: it might be tempting to some celebrities who are not

960
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 10: familiar with this, but ultimately they're running the risk of

961
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,799
Speaker 10: being branded as a scammer. Most of these things, even

962
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 10: if they don't collapse quite as spectacularly is this one,

963
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 10: are still pretty naked cash grabs and so I don't

964
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 10: think it's something that many people who are trying to

965
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 10: maintain any form of legitimate reputation would necessarily want to

966
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 10: get involved with.

967
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a podcast is one thing, although still offensive,

968
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 2: but it's so funny that yeah, now it's like, oh,

969
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:57,280
Speaker 2: the best way to engage with your fans is to

970
00:55:57,320 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 2: create a new kind of money and make them.

971
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:01,280
Speaker 12: I guess the one.

972
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 10: Thing that I try to point out when it comes

973
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:04,760
Speaker 10: to meme coins like this is, you know, the people

974
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 10: who are looking at them and saying, maybe I can

975
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 10: be the one who gets in early. Maybe I can

976
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 10: be the one who makes a killing off of this

977
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 10: when it spikes by a thousand percent before it completely crashes.

978
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 10: It's important to realize that in the crypto world, for

979
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 10: many people, it is literally not possible to get in

980
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,239
Speaker 10: early enough to make money on these things. There's this

981
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 10: whole ecosystem of bots, and it's called token sniping, where

982
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 10: you know, there's all this infrastructure out there that is

983
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 10: fairly sophisticated people doing the same thing you're trying to do,

984
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 10: sitting at your computer watching Twitter and so getting the

985
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 10: idea that you are going to be the one who

986
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 10: gets in early enough to profit off of. This is

987
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 10: a very dangerous idea because it's you're trading against people

988
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 10: who are, despite the fact that they're trading meme coins,

989
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:52,239
Speaker 10: relatively sophisticated.

990
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 12: In this type of thing.

991
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:55,800
Speaker 10: And when it comes to meme coin markets, but certainly

992
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 10: crypto markets more broadly, I think a lot of people

993
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 10: tend to look at them as it somewhat similar to

994
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 10: stock markets and sort of other highly regulated trading venues,

995
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 10: and that is also often a mistake, because you really

996
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 10: should not be putting trust into even the exchanges where

997
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 10: you're trading, the people you're trading against, the platforms that

998
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 10: are supposedly helping you to do this trading, because there is,

999
00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 10: like I said, just such a failure of the regulatory

1000
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 10: apparatus to maintain these legitimate and sort of safe markets

1001
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 10: for retail investors to trade in. So I'm always cautious about,

1002
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:34,240
Speaker 10: you know, talking about these things in a way that

1003
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 10: might give people the impression that, like, ooh, you know,

1004
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 10: maybe I can be the one who makes a killing

1005
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 10: off of this, because it's stacked against you in ways

1006
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 10: that people often don't realize.

1007
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Mollie. You can follow all

1008
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 2: her work, and Web three is going just great at

1009
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 2: the links in the description, And here we find ourselves

1010
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 2: at the end of the hawk.

1011
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: To a series. Is this purgatory? Have we been dead

1012
00:57:58,840 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: the whole time?

1013
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 5: The whole time, the whole time you would the whole time?

1014
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 2: Is the only useful lesson here? Never trust Gizmo's son

1015
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 2: in law. Maybe, But ironically enough, I think it is

1016
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 2: this same son in law, not Hollywood himself, that has

1017
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 2: the key to not only what the victims of the

1018
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 2: crypto scam believed, but what I think probably motivated Haley

1019
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 2: Welch to become a part of this scheme in the

1020
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 2: first place.

1021
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 17: The people here that you guys are already y'all have

1022
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 17: had every day thinking everything's a scam. And you know what,

1023
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 17: you guys are right, Everything is a scam, but not this,

1024
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 17: not this.

1025
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 2: You're right, everything's a scam, but not this. Contained in

1026
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 2: the words of this coked out freak is an insight

1027
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 2: into online culture today. The days where someone would be

1028
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 2: surprised to be taken advantage of online are long gone.

1029
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 2: To some extent, It's an expectation of being online.

1030
00:58:58,040 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: It's the rules of play.

1031
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 2: So why are so many people still getting scammed. I

1032
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 2: think it's because of what Doc Hollywood is saying. A

1033
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 2: good scammer can convince you that, sure everything is a scam,

1034
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 2: just not this. Why is this normal girl from Tennessee

1035
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 2: using her image to rip off people just like her,

1036
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:23,919
Speaker 2: people in a position that she herself would have been

1037
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 2: in just six months earlier. I don't know for sure,

1038
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:31,880
Speaker 2: but I can say that it feels pretty nihilistic in

1039
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 2: the way that a lot of American culture is. Here

1040
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 2: is this young woman that went viral after being coerced

1041
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 2: into creating content for someone else outside of a bar.

1042
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,880
Speaker 2: She panics for a week, then seems to realize that

1043
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 2: while this isn't what she wanted, maybe it's a blessing

1044
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 2: in disguise.

1045
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: She's grown up on the Internet.

1046
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 2: She's seen this happen to people before, and she knows

1047
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 2: that if she doesn't try to capitalize on this, someone

1048
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 2: else is going to.

1049
01:00:00,880 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: They've already started.

1050
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 2: She's grown up poor, she has witnessed the American scam firsthand.

1051
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 2: The only way you die above the class you were

1052
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 2: born in now is for something extraordinary to happen. And sure,

1053
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 2: some people strike it big professionally in a way that

1054
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 2: helps and enriches the lives of others. But if you're

1055
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 2: trying to do it quick, probably not. Again, none of

1056
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 2: this justifies financially extorting other people, but I do think

1057
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 2: it contextualizes it. But when the shine wears off of

1058
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 2: this initial moment, maybe the podcast is a little amateurish.

1059
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:39,320
Speaker 1: Maybe the public seems to.

1060
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:42,160
Speaker 2: Be moving on from the meme she seems.

1061
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: To say fuck it.

1062
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 2: Maybe it's possible to be convinced by the bad actors

1063
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 2: you've surrounded yourself with the doc hollywoods and the Jake Pauls,

1064
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:53,840
Speaker 2: that you can get a solid cash out on your

1065
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 2: way out the door of relevance. That becoming the scammer

1066
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 2: is how you really jump classes. Because for all intents

1067
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:06,360
Speaker 2: and purposes, that's true. All she has to do is

1068
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:10,280
Speaker 2: convince the people she's scamming that they're the scammers too.

1069
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 2: I am honestly really curious where Haley Welch goes from here,

1070
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 2: if anywhere in the influencing space specifically, But if this

1071
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 2: is it, I think Hayley ended up getting caught between

1072
01:01:25,120 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 2: the scammers and the scammed, because yes, she absolutely used

1073
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 2: and monetized her image to rip off a lot of people.

1074
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:37,920
Speaker 2: Who had not gotten lucky in the same way that

1075
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 2: she had.

1076
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:40,200
Speaker 1: But it's just as.

1077
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:43,840
Speaker 2: Undeniable to me that she was exploited and deceived by

1078
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 2: the people surrounding her more than once. First by the

1079
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 2: guys who posted the clip of her without explicit permission,

1080
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:54,080
Speaker 2: who then yelled at her publicly for not cutting them

1081
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 2: in on her success. Then with the management that often

1082
01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 2: openly acknowledged that they knew she was seen as a

1083
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,680
Speaker 2: sexual object and that that made her uncomfortable. The same

1084
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 2: management who openly said that they didn't think she was

1085
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:12,120
Speaker 2: smart enough to understand what real Hollywood representation would mean.

1086
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 2: You don't need to feel bad for her, but Haley

1087
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 2: absolutely got scammed here too, because even if she's not

1088
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 2: the one getting sued, she's the one who gets discarded

1089
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 2: in her first national interview a thousand years ago, all

1090
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 2: the way back in July twenty twenty four, from that piece.

1091
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 15: They all think they know so much about me, she continues,

1092
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:35,840
Speaker 15: but nobody knows shit about me. Do you want them to,

1093
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 15: I ask, We'll shoot a gbus smile. Don't worry they

1094
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 15: will before it's over with.

1095
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 2: Hailey, Welch the Hawk to a girl. Your sixteenth minute

1096
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 2: ends now, I hope for your sake. Thank you so

1097
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 2: much to everyone who has listened to this series. Please

1098
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 2: tell your damn friends about it.

1099
01:02:57,720 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: For crying out loud.

1100
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,520
Speaker 2: And next week we will return with a real mystery,

1101
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 2: one that collides the classic exploratory, weirdo Internet communities of

1102
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:14,000
Speaker 2: lost Media and creepy pasta fans the back rooms next

1103
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:20,640
Speaker 2: week on sixteenth Minute. Sixteenth Minute is a production of

1104
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 2: fool Zone Media and iHeart Radios. It is written, hosted,

1105
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 2: and produced by me Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are

1106
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:31,640
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The amazing Ian Johnson is

1107
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 2: our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is

1108
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 2: by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is from Grant Crater and Pet.

1109
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,439
Speaker 2: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kats Flee

1110
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 2: and Casper and my pet Rockbird, who will outlive us all.

1111
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:48,320
Speaker 1: Bye