Cryptocurrency exchange Easy Crypto says it wouldn't have listed Hawkcoin

Viral star Hailey Welch, of "hawk tuah" fame, launched a cryptocurrency "memecoin" this month.

Viral star Hailey Welch, of "hawk tuah" fame, has launched a cryptocurrency "memecoin" This month. A memecoin is a cryptocurrency that grew out of an internet meme. Welch became a meme with her description of a sexual act in a video that circulated online this year.

The coin briefly spiked in value, to a market cap of nearly US$500 million, but then collapsed by more than 95 percent, sparking criticism that it was a "rug pull" - a scam where an investment is hyped to drive up the price by investors who sell at the top of the market.

The founder of cryptocurrency exchange Easy Crypto says it wouldn't have listed Hawkcoin. Janine Grainger said her processes for coin selection would not have supported listing the token because of the likelihood of customers losing money.

"We review all coins with rigour to protect our customers from issues brought about by tokens and coins like this," she said.

Easy Crypto is one of the few cryptocurrency exchanges that are licensed to operate in New Zealand.

Rupert Carlyon, whose Koura KiwiSaver offers a fund that invests in Bitcoin, said it was developments such as Hawkcoin that made him rename his fund a Bitcoin fund, rather than a cryptocurrency one.

"I think increasingly we see that cryptocurrency can mean lots of dodgy nefarious things but Bitcoin means something completely different,” he said.

"There are only a couple of other coins you might want to touch... those that do really useful things and you can see what they're useful at."

He said Easy Crypto should be commended for swerving the coin.

"That's what you get from a trusted New Zealand brand rather than going for one of the offshore operators," Carlyon said.

The first memecoin was the dogecoin, which was reportedly created to make fun of the speculation in cryptocurrencies. Binance said it also did not offer investors Hawkcoin.