Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’

It was after clawing back “six figures” from a decentralized finance (DeFi) scam project in 2021 that New York-based attorney and Navy veteran Max Burwick realized he could take on crypto’s biggest grifters and win.

“It changed the way I looked at everything,” Burwick tells Magazine. He’s currently suing Solana-based memecoin factory Pump.fun and the creators of the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) token, among many others.

“Two things happened to me at that moment that were critical. One was I understood the dual nature of what people pretend to be in crypto. And I also understood the power that you could have as a lawyer.”

In January, Burwick filed a class-action suit against Pump.fun — a platform that allows anyone to create their own memecoin, which was flooding the crypto space with 40,000 extra tokens every day until things started to tail off following the recent Libra (LIBRA) token scam.

*A reference to Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator” (Max Burwick*)

However, the ambitious lawsuit has garnered intense backlash on social media, mainly because it attempts to paint every memecoin listed by Pump.fun as an unregistered security.

If that argument is successful, the case could theoretically spell disaster for the $64 billion memecoin market, and as a result, Burwick has copped massive heat over it. Trolls are making memecoins with his image, sending “messages” to his office, and many more have accused him of launching a token on the very platform he’s suing.

A recent statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission complicates the case however. In late February, the agency’s Division of Corporation Finance said that it doesn’t view memecoins as securities and that they are more akin to collectibles. However, a footnote clarifies this is merely the division’s view and not the SEC’s, and it prompted a dissenting statement from SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw on the same day.

Rug pulled? Good

Burwick’s law firm only makes money if it wins a lawsuit or if it’s able to secure an out-of-court settlement, meaning it needs to create a constant stream of litigation to keep the engine running.

Due to this, Helium Foundation head of protocol engineering, Noah Prince and many others have slammed Burwick as an “ambulance chaser of crypto” — a term that references lawyers who try to drum up work by persuading someone who’s been in an accident to claim compensation.

Bill Hughes, a lawyer at Consensys, asked his followers whether they would rather have SEC Chair Gary Gensler or dozens of “mini-Genslers” (like Burwick) bringing lawsuits claiming “this that and the other” are all securities.

Burwick says some have even called him an “Ivy League suit” chasing dollars — and that’s far from reality.

“We had felt a lot of people had a misunderstanding of who I was and really what the firm was about,” Burwick tells Magazine about why he released a 15-minute video called “Meet Max Burwick” on X in February.

“I’m a human being. I’m approachable. You know, this isn’t some far-out lawsuit with some unnamed person in some steel building somewhere. This is reality.”

There was a time when Burwick could barely read

Burwick says he couldn’t be further from an “Ivy League suit.” In fact, he barely made it out of high school.

“I really struggled learning,” said Burwick, laughing awkwardly. “I was so anxious around words that I really didn’t learn how to read properly until I was in the Navy.”

Burwick joined the US Navy at the tender age of 18 and says, “I genuinely did teach myself how to read.”

*Haliey Welch’s Hawk Tuah memecoin plummeted 91% in three hours. Source: DexScreener*

Five years later, the 23-year-old Burwick finished up his military tour as a rescue swimmer and electronics weapons specialist. He worked as a personal trainer for a CrossFit gym in New York City and was trying out for a special military unit at the same time.

But those plans were dashed when Burwick severely injured his back. That’s when he decided to study law and took a liking to math and software engineering.

Now 41, Burwick has been running his own practice for around three years.

In recent months, he’s targeted the creators of Haliey Welch’s Hawk Tuah (HAWK) memecoin, which launched in December to hit a $490 million market cap before dumping 91% within just three hours.

He’s looking to represent investors who have lost money on Argentina’s $4 billion recently failed Libra (LIBRA) token, which was “shared” by Argentine President Javier Milei and dropped 85% within four hours of its controversial launch.

Does the Pump.fun case have legs?

In a Jan. 16 X post, Burwick said that memecoins exemplified on Pump.fun represent “the ultimate evolution of multilevel marketing scams” and are nothing more than vehicles for financial exploitation.

“This isn’t crypto innovation—it’s a repackaged Ponzi scheme.” he wrote online, before filing the lawsuit on Jan. 30.

Gabriel Shapiro, a Silicon Valley-based attorney and former general counsel of Delphi Labs, said in a Jan. 17 post the lawsuit may have legs.

He said that while in the past, memecoins were assumed not to be covered by US securities laws, “it’s clear they changed his cycle as professionalized teams/operations formed around them and set part of the market expectations.”

“This does not mean they definitely are covered by the securities laws but it’s placed them more at risk of it than was considered previously.”

Burwick’s class action alleges that Pump.fun’s core function is to work alongside influencers to co-issue unregistered securities, claiming the platform has made nearly half a billion dollars in fees while knowingly assisting the creation of tokens that exploit hate speech, violence and exploitation to generate attention and trading volume.

It’s suing Pump.fun’s founders, the Baton Corporation, for compensatory damages with the amount determined at trial.

Pump fun racist memecoins — *This was one of the tamer examples of hate speech and general unpleasantness from the lawsuit. (Burwick Law*)

Shapiro said on X the document was “thoughtfully drafted,” though he was “not sure how far it will get,” given the “common enterprise” prong of the Howey test and the fact that the memecoins go through an automated market maker.

Another problem with Burwick’s lawsuit is the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance’s Feb. 27 statement announcing that it views memecoins as collectibles and thus “do not involve the offer and sale of securities under the federal securities laws.”

“As such, persons who participate in the offer and sale of meme coins do not need to register their transactions with the Commission,” the SEC division said.

This was promptly argued by SEC Commissioner Crenshaw, who said memecoins could satisfy the Howey test’s condition of profiting from the managerial efforts of others due to the coordination between developer teams and promoters.

But while the lawsuit looks like an attack on all memecoins — Burwick says this isn’t the case at all.

“Memecoins are awesome. Memecoins are not inherently the problem […] There are a lot of really cool things you could do.”

The problem, Burwick says, is when there’s a secondary market for these tokens, which operates at “warp speed.”

Burwick said he was looking forward to memecoins that are integrated into entertainment experiences such as concerts, which could work like an NFT.

DOGSHIT2 controversy

One of the biggest distractions of the Pump.fun lawsuit comes from DOGSHIT2, a memecoin that some believe Burwick ironically launched on the very platform he’s trying to sue.

DOGSHIT2 first appeared on Pump.fun on Nov. 1, 2024, but didn’t begin trading until more than two months later on Jan. 17, 2025. Critics accuse Burwick of being responsible for launching and listing the token on Pump.fun — which, at one point, had a market cap of $23 million.

The purported smoking gun comes from a court exhibit accompanying the class-action lawsuit which shows the process of listing DOGSHIT2 from “connect wallet” all the way to “token listed.”

*Exhibit C of Burwick Law’s lawsuit against Pump.fun. (Courtlistener*)

But Burwick has denied creating or launching the token. That said, he understands why people don’t seem to like him very much for it.

“I will say this. I think it’s a very fair position the way people feel about it… I get it. I really get it.”

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Felix Ng

Felix Ng first began writing about the blockchain industry through the lens of a gambling industry journalist and editor in 2015. He has since moved into covering the blockchain space full-time. He is most interested in innovative blockchain technology aimed at solving real-world challenges.