On Sept. 3, 2021, Logan Paul launched his new game ‘CryptoZoo’ after extensively talking about it on his podcast, ‘Impaulsive’, and on social media. Users were able to play and gain cryptocurrency and NFTs through buying digital eggs with real money. Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that is an alternative form of payment through encryption, which makes it impossible to counterfeit or forge. NFTs or non-fungible tokens are used to represent ownership of unique or special items through cryptography/encryption. Users could then hatch this egg for NFTs designed by Logan Paul and his team, and combine the NFTs together for a rare higher value NFT. Players can win new NFTs and coins that translate to a crypto currency called $ZOO.
Advertised as an easy money maker and a “really fun game that makes you money” by Logan Paul, CryptoZoo would have thousands of dollars worth of investments put into the game’s NFTs. Believing that Logan Paul’s own popularity and trustworthiness would shoot the game into popularity, many supporters used savings and pulled loans to try to cash in on the crypto game.
The initial 10,000 NFTs that allowed users to play the game were sold before the game’s release. Logan Paul and his team rarely worked and mentioned CryptoZoo after selling all of the NFT stock. Many investors lost all of their money, and as a result began filing class action lawsuits against CryptoZoo’s team. The lawsuit’s main claim against Logan Paul and the team behind CryptoZoo stated they “made the business decision to forego an expensive and time-consuming process to create a functional CryptoZoo game or support it, and instead deliberately undertook a scheme to defraud Plaintiff and other consumers.”
The CryptoZoo failure was made more well-known after Stephen Findeisen, also known as ‘Coffeezilla,’ published a three part exposé. Findeisen interviewed many victims of the “scam” that lost several thousands of dollars on CryptoZoo, and investigated further into the team behind the cryptocurrency. Findeisen estimates that investors have lost $3.6 million in the CryptoZoo scam.
After the videos were published, Logan Paul began to receive extreme backlash. The Youtuber began defending himself on his social media and published a video explaining himself and attempting to divert the backlash onto his team made of “con men” and “felons.” Paul vehemently denies that the failure of CryptoZoo was his fault, and threatened to sue Findeisen for getting the facts wrong. The video earned Logan Paul more criticism, resulting in deletion of the video and an apology towards Findeisen.
Logan Paul has pledged a fund of $1.3 million to reimburse the investors of CryptoZoo on January 14th. Paul has given up all stake in the cryptocurrency and stated he has a plan to solve all wrong-doings. The lawsuits are still on-going as law enforcement decides how to handle the fraud.
As of Sept. 20, 2023, CryptoZoo victims have yet to see any money or reimbursement from Logan Paul. Stephen Findeisen has made several attempts in contacting Paul to question further about where the money may have gone. Paul has refused to answer any attempts, and has yet to comment any further on the reimbursement program.