YouTuber and web character Logan Paul has discovered himself with an enormous goal on his brow lately. Paul, who’s been on one thing of a redemption arc these previous couple of years following the “suicide forest” fiasco in December 2017, is again in scorching water after crypto investigator Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen printed a three-part video sequence trying into CryptoZoo, a blockchain “sport” Paul as soon as closely promoted. There are simply two obvious issues right here: The sport doesn’t exist but, and Paul’s most ardent followers and early traders have misplaced a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} within the means of supporting it.
Logan Paul, the older brother of boxer and media character Jake Paul, is a YouTuber who started creating content material on Vine within the early 2010s earlier than migrating to Google’s video platform as soon as Vine shuttered. He recurrently uploads vlog-style movies during which he affords viewers a voyeuristic look into his each day life and the assorted shenanigans he engages in. Whereas already a controversial determine throughout his early content material creation days, Paul didn’t actually draw the web’s ire till December 2017 when he filmed a video in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest during which he and members of his crew filmed and interacted with a useless physique in a fashion many thought-about tasteless and inappropriate. (Aokigahara has a repute for being a website of frequent suicides.)
This video and the next response to it completely tanked Paul’s profession for a lot of 2018. Nonetheless, since then, Paul’s been rehabilitating his picture as a media character {and professional} wrestler, signing to WWE’s Uncooked whereas internet hosting a YouTube podcast that boasts over 4 million subscribers. Dude’s doing very properly for himself. Nonetheless, he’s the web’s fundamental character once more following what seems to be his involvement in one of many largest crypto scams that has been uncovered so far.
In a three-part video sequence totaling somewhat over an hour, Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen—a YouTuber who “uncovers scams, fraudsters, and faux gurus which are preying on determined individuals with misleading promoting”—appeared into CryptoZoo. What the hell is CryptoZoo? Nicely, as Paul explains it, it’s a “actually enjoyable sport that earns you cash.” In line with the official web site, which says the sport is presently “present process upgrades to the core infrastructure of the ecosystem,” CryptoZoo is an “autonomous ecosystem that enables ZooKeepers to purchase, promote, and commerce unique animals and hybrids.” Principally, it’s an NFT sport during which gamers buy zoo cash, CryptoZoo’s in-game forex, to purchase egg NFTs which are hatched to turn into animals. As soon as hatched, you then breed these animals collectively to make hybrids and the rarer the hybrid, the upper the each day yield of zoo cash. Money these out and increase, you’re pulling in cash. In brief, it’s structured to work like passive revenue.
Sadly, this “play-to-earn” NFT sport stuffed with hand-made artwork—as Paul likes to closely emphasize on his podcast Impaulsive—has by no means but been playable, regardless of letting individuals sink tons of cash into it. Coffeezilla found that, since CryptoZoo’s introduction in 2021, Paul stans have spent some $2.5 million on eggs alone, with the coin itself skyrocketing to a market cap of roughly $2 billion. Some people Coffeezilla talked to shelled out tens, typically a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} on CryptoZoo as a result of they believed Paul was a “modified man” and he was making a “protected place” for the everyperson to put money into cryptocurrency. Seems they have been flawed, a minimum of on the second half, as a result of now these individuals are out 1000’s of {dollars}.
Rob, or Helicopter Bob, one of many victims Coffeezilla video-chatted with, mentioned he misplaced “slightly below $7,000 with CryptoZoo.” Helicopter Bob defined that the passive revenue, the mission’s core mechanic, “by no means did [work] from the start and wasn’t even written into the contract the place it confirmed you have been really yielding with Zoo.” He went on to say that “there was no technique to declare your yield [and] there by no means was.” Principally, individuals have been placing cash right into a system that was offering zero returns.
Worse but, as an unnamed particular person instructed Coffeezilla in a separate video name, those that invested in CryptoZoo couldn’t even hatch the eggs they purchased. “It’s only a image,” the particular person mentioned in regards to the eggs. “There’s nothing I can do with it. It’s principally value nothing in any respect.” So, you’ve acquired diehard Paul followers pining to play a nonfunctioning sport and dropping cash within the course of. A sport, thoughts you, that also doesn’t work to today.
In Coffeezilla’s movies, we hear Paul clarify sure points with CryptoZoo’s growth. Particularly, he says a “developer fled to Switzerland” with the supply code and held it hostage for $1 million, and that is why the sport’s been damaged. However this developer, who Coffeezilla spoke to in the midst of his investigation, claims that he hadn’t been paid in any respect for his work on CryptoZoo, regardless of bringing on a crew of 30 engineers and burning $50,000 every week to construct the NFT mission. One other CryptoZoo developer Coffeezilla spoke with corroborated the declare, saying he additionally hadn’t been paid in any respect. Not solely have been Paul’s followers discovering holes of their wallets after investing in CryptoZoo, however it seems that the individuals engaged on the mission weren’t even being paid adequately or on time.
Kotaku reached out to Findeisen and Paul for remark.
Paul, for his half, has said that the report is “merely not true” and that, “when acceptable, all unhealthy actors might be uncovered, defined, & held totally accountable,” promising extra particulars in his January 3 podcast. On December 26, Paul publicly invited Coffeezilla to seem on the Impaulsive podcast to hash all the pieces out, although Coffeezilla responded by saying that he’d already invited Paul onto his show the day earlier than. It stays to be seen whether or not or not something will come to fruition from these exchanges.
