Given Logan Paul’s dubious history on YouTube, it most likely doesn’t come as a shock that his CryptoZoo NFT challenge has allegedly turned out to be a rip-off. Some traders ended up shedding as much as half one million {dollars}, in keeping with unbiased YouTube reporter Coffeezilla. The event of CryptoZoo has been stalled as a result of alleged nonpayment of coders.
The 27-year-old Paul rose to prominence in 2013 by posting sketches on Vine; however when the quick video platform shut down, he transitioned to YouTube and even fights within the WWE. In August 2021, Paul took to his YouTube podcast to announce his NFT challenge.
“It’s so enjoyable. It supplies a yield with a token, it may well earn you cash, and as an individual who understands, I believe, the NFT house sufficient to know what works, what folks need and what they’re on the lookout for, I believe my recreation goes to make some waves,” Paul mentioned.
Between his main YouTube channel and his podcast, Paul has round 28 million subscribers, plus one other 24.6 million followers on Instagram and 16.6 million on TikTok. In other phrases, he had the viewers essential to generate hype round a brand new assortment of NFTs.
Paul’s followers might purchase an NFT of an egg, which hatches into an animal that’s assigned one in all 5 ranges of rarity. These animals could be bred to supply extra eggs that hatch hybrid animals, which even have particular rarity ranges. When animals are hatched, they yield $ZOO tokens — the rarer the animal, the extra it yields.
Paul promised followers that they may play video games with their animals, which might ultimately “enter the metaverse,” in keeping with CryptoZoo’s product roadmap. However many of the objectives on the product roadmap haven’t been achieved.
The unbiased reporter Coffeezilla launched a three-part video sequence on the finish of December, chronicling his analysis into what went fallacious with CryptoZoo. Because it seems, Paul had employed a number of con males to work on the challenge.
Coffeezilla interviewed Cryptozoo’s developer “Z,” who’s holding the code hostage for $1 million, since he claims that Paul by no means paid him. In a response video, Paul claimed that “Z” is definitely Zach Kelling, a convicted felon.
“I do know what you’re considering. What sort of fool would work with an unsavory particular person like Zach Kelling?” Paul says in his response video. He blames this rent on Eddie Ibanez, the previous lead developer of CryptoZoo. “I suppose that’s what I get for trusting the crew that I relied on to vet and handle Eddie’s hiring course of, who has turned out to be an expert con man.”
However Ibanez’s scammy previous isn’t new info. In February 2022, Philadelphia tradition weblog Billy Penn — a part of the regional NPR community — reported an investigation into the tech founder’s previous.
Whereas working an information analytics firm referred to as Zenabi in 2019, Ibanez was accused of sharing delicate knowledge about one in all his purchasers, the Mormon church, with one other shopper, the Worldwide Champions Cup. He additionally claimed on his web site to have labored with the CIA and two NFL groups — he even mentioned that he had a Philadelphia Eagles Tremendous Bowl ring from their victory in 2018. However Billy Penn reported that Ibanez by no means even met with anybody from the Eagles till after the Tremendous Bowl, and although Ibanez did have some conferences with the crew, these conversations by no means was an precise partnership. Ibanez additionally claims to have studied at MIT, however the MIT Information Workplace informed Billy Penn that he was by no means enrolled on the college.
Then, Zenabi acquired a complete of $1.5 million in PPP loans from the federal authorities. Across the similar time, Ibanez’s landlord sued for $118,000 in again lease and property injury. In keeping with a former Zenabi worker who spoke to Billy Penn, Zenabi is being investigated by the FBI about its PPP loans.
Regardless of a laundry record of suspicious claims, Paul continued working with Ibanez till July 2022.
This isn’t the primary time that Paul has been accused of selling crypto scams — in July 2021, he promoted the “shitcoin” referred to as Dink Doink, which just about instantly misplaced all of its “value.”
Different influencers like Kim Kardashian have confronted consequences for selling crypto to their followers with out the required disclosures. The SEC settled with Kardashian for $1.26 million over her partnership with EthereumMax. Although she wrote “#ad” on the backside of her Instagram submit, the SEC mentioned she ought to have disclosed that she was paid $250,000 for the promotion.
What does the longer term maintain for CryptoZoo? Nicely, nothing, till Logan Paul manages to get that code again from Zach Kelling, who Coffeezilla says fled to Switzerland. However Paul ended his response video with a promotional display screen, stating that CryptoZoo is coming in 2023 or 2024.
