One of the most influential personalities on the internet is Logan Paul along with his brother Jake Paul. The brothers went from a few followers to becoming the richest YouTubers. Logan, after his stint on Vine, shifted his content to YouTube garnering millions of views and dollars. Along with making videos and podcasts, he is a professional boxer, who fought KSI, the co-founder of Prime, in several boxing matches. But, after dabbling into many ventures gaining liquid capital, he ventured into the crypto currency zone ‘CryptoZoo’.
The crypto world is in a disastrous form at the moment. There have been severe repercussions for the industry heavyweights like Sam Bankman-Fried. The overestimation of the industry and infiltrations of fraudulent actors have plagued the industry. The year 2020 was a golden year giving rise to the currency with several blockchains. One of the most popular modes of transactions was the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The YouTuber also promoted and launched a game in the pay-to-earn format with NFT (Zoo Coins) as the currency. But, the internet deems it to be a “scam”.
What Is The ‘CryptoZoo’ Controversy?
A YouTuber who claims to be an internet investigator, Coffeezilla, has released a three part exposé series. The exposé has claimed that Logan Paul has scammed people and stolen millions of dollars via CryptoZoo. So, what is CryptoZoo? Stephen Findeisen, the host at the YouTube channel explained how the game works.
He said, “You started by buying this crypto token called Zoo, which is their in-game currency, and you use Zoo Coins to then buy Egg NFTs which you can then hatch to become animals. You can then breed those two animals to become hybrid animals. For example, if you breed a gorilla and a kitten, you get a Gor-Kitty, and the more rare the NFT, the higher the daily yield of Zoo tokens that animal earns you every day”.
However, the investors did not have a good experience with the game. As promised, the animals hatched and bred, but it did not give any yields. Logan Paul heavily promoted the system on his podcasts. However, the game did not live to its expectations. Many investors lost thousands of dollars investing in the game. One of the testimonies during Stephen’s investigation, Emilio said that he lost 50,000 Australian dollars. He revealed, “I’m telling you, it’s just a picture. Nothing I can do with it”.
Coffeezilla also touched upon the developers who were criminals. The person that he referred to as Z is Zach Kelling. He has been charged on multiple occasions for felonies. Eddie Ibanez was the lead developer at CryptoZoo, who has been a conman and fooled many organizations before. Crypto King, one of the biggest holders of the tokens, has accused Logan Paul of stealing $40 million from him. Coffeezilla ended his video with an analogy where he said, “It’s like the Avengers assemble for the worst possible team you can imagine to make a crypto game”.
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Logan Paul Has Responded To His Claims
On January 3rd, 2023, Logan Paul uploaded a video to respond to Coffezilla and explain his side. On Twitter, the YouTuber said that he appreciated Coffeezilla’s content, but his take on CryptoZoo is not valid and he will respond to his claims. In the video, Logan said, “While your work used to be impartial, your addiction to clicks have clouded your judgment and you made very real errors with very real repercussions”. Paul called him a lopsided journalist and said that his work was described as ‘not anchored to truth’ and ‘often speculative’.
Then, he went on to respond to his claims one by one and expose his testimonies. He started with Zach Kelling whom he referred to as ‘Z’. Logan said, “[You] interviewed the developer who stole the game code, fled to Switzerland, and held hostage for $1 million. Well, his name is Zach Kelling”. Paul went on to list his felonies saying, “Surely as the internet detective that you proclaim to be, you would know that he spent time in prison for multiple felonies. One for the aggravated robbery, armed robbery at a liquor store, and the other for, surprise, ‘obstructing legal process'”.
He then went to talk about the team that he recruited to carry out the mammoth task of creating it. Paul accused Stephen for violating civil laws by recording his manager’s call. Logan continued, “And surely a real internet detective would not break criminal and civil laws in trying to get information, right? So, why have you allowed the illegal recording of Jeff’s phone call without his permission and more like an internet criminal posting it online”. Lastly, the kickboxer said that he will meet him in court, and he will be suing him for not consulting him before the defamatory videos.
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