Shytoshi Kusama, the pseudonymous lead of the Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) ecosystem, on Thursday, distanced themselves from the controversial meme coin launched by influencer Haliey Welch of the “Hawk Tuah” fame.
What Happened: Kusama came to X to clear the air over the alleged links to the HAWK coin, which was pumped and dumped shortly after its launch.
The mysterious personality disclosed that they were approached by Welch’s team months ago to promote the coin, but they declined the offer.
However, Kusama said they were fine with the project airdropping millions of their tokens to the SHIB community.
“Because Shib is decentralized, the post including Shib was going out regardless. So okay, you want to airdrop tokens; it won’t be the first or last, and we have methods in place to accept these properly (Leash, etc.) like we have done in the past,” Kusama added.
Even so, Kusama denied any partnership or agreement with the team at this time.
The Shiba Inu lead said that while they were preparing on their end for the airdrop, Welch’s team went ahead with the “instant launch.”
“Pump and obvious dumping; even denial of doing so! Which imho is shameful and just like like 90% of the crap on Solana. Do better,” Kusama slammed the creators.
They deemed the meme coin as “trash” and advised the community to stay away from the “terrible” launch.
The team behind the HAWK token didn’t immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment on the claims by Kusama.
Why It Matters: The cryptocurrency community was stunned by the sudden crash in the meme coin’s market value after the initial pump, with many accusing Welch of defrauding them through insider trading.
Welch has denied the allegations, saying that no free token was given to anyone from the team or influencers.
Fingers also started to point toward the Shiba Inu ecosystem, with a user named Lola accusing the team behind the official X account of promoting the pump-and-dump coin.
Price Action: As of this writing, the Solana (CRYPTO: SOL)-based coin was down 32.59% in the last 24 hours while its market capitalization plummeted to $27 million from $425 million immediately after launch, according to Dexscreener data.
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