YouTuber and web character Logan Paul has discovered himself with a large goal on his brow just lately. Paul, who’s been on one thing of a redemption arc these previous few years following the “suicide forest” fiasco in December 2017, is again in sizzling water after crypto investigator Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen revealed a three-part video sequence wanting 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 lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} within the strategy 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 commonly uploads vlog-style movies by which he affords viewers a voyeuristic look into his day by day life and the varied 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 by which he and members of his crew filmed and interacted with a lifeless physique in a way many thought of tasteless and inappropriate. (Aokigahara has a fame for being a web site of frequent suicides.)
This video and the next response to it completely tanked Paul’s profession for a lot of 2018. Nevertheless, 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 nicely for himself. Nevertheless, he’s the web’s most important character once more following what seems to be his involvement in one of many largest crypto scams that has been uncovered to this point.
In a three-part video sequence totaling somewhat over an hour, Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen—a YouTuber who “uncovers scams, fraudsters, and pretend gurus which might be preying on determined folks with misleading promoting”—seemed into CryptoZoo. What the hell is CryptoZoo? Properly, as Paul explains it, it’s a “actually enjoyable sport that earns you cash.” In accordance with the official web site, which says the sport is at the moment “present process upgrades to the core infrastructure of the ecosystem,” CryptoZoo is an “autonomous ecosystem that permits ZooKeepers to purchase, promote, and commerce unique animals and hybrids.” Principally, it’s an NFT sport by which gamers buy zoo cash, CryptoZoo’s in-game forex, to purchase egg NFTs which might be hatched to change into animals. As soon as hatched, you then breed these animals collectively to make hybrids and the rarer the hybrid, the upper the day by day yield of zoo cash. Money these out and growth, you’re pulling in cash. In brief, it’s structured to work like passive earnings.
Sadly, this “play-to-earn” NFT sport crammed with hand-made artwork—as Paul likes to closely emphasize on his podcast Impaulsive—has by no means but been playable, regardless of letting folks 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 of us Coffeezilla talked to shelled out tens, typically lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} on CryptoZoo as a result of they believed Paul was a “modified man” and he was making a “secure place” for the everyperson to spend money on cryptocurrency. Seems they had been improper, not less than on the second half, as a result of now these persons are out 1000’s of {dollars}.
Rob, or Helicopter Bob, one of many victims Coffeezilla video-chatted with, mentioned he misplaced “just below $7,000 with CryptoZoo.” Helicopter Bob defined that the passive earnings, 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 had been truly yielding with Zoo.” He went on to say that “there was no method to declare your yield [and] there by no means was.” Principally, folks had been placing cash right into a system that was offering zero returns.
Worse but, as an unnamed particular person advised 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 price nothing in any way.” So, you’ve acquired diehard Paul followers pining to play a nonfunctioning sport and shedding cash within the course of. A sport, thoughts you, that also doesn’t work to this present day.
In Coffeezilla’s movies, we hear Paul clarify sure points with CryptoZoo’s improvement. Particularly, he says a “developer fled to Switzerland” with the supply code and held it hostage for $1 million, and for this reason 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 group of 30 engineers and burning $50,000 per 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 had been Paul’s followers discovering holes of their wallets after investing in CryptoZoo, however it seems that the folks 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 will likely be uncovered, defined, & held absolutely accountable,” promising extra particulars in his January 3 podcast. On December 26, Paul publicly invited Coffeezilla to seem on the Impaulsive podcast to hash the whole lot 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.