Most sane people today know that any project involving NFTs in any way is something you probably shouldn’t touch with a ten foot barge pole. Even if we forget all the negative impacts on the environment, the practice has become a constant source of controversy in the last couple of years. If that wasn’t enough to deter you from picking up an NFT for yourself, perhaps the latest NFT controversy will.
Logan Paul has been a controversial character for most of his online career, though he’s recently kept his head down by buying fake Pokemon cards and starring in WWE matches. However, he’s been thrust back into the spotlight now, as a YouTuber named Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen has conducted an investigative report into CryptoZoo (thanks Kotaku), an NFT game that Paul has been heavily promoting on his podcast show Impaulsive.
For those unaware, CryptoZoo is essentially meant to be a “really fun game that makes you money,” a description straight from the mouth of Logan Paul himself. In the game, you can buy Zoo Coins to spend on NFT Eggs that hatch into animals. You can then breed these animals to make hybrids and sell them to make more zoo coins. The rarer you hybrid, the more Zoo Coins you get and the more money you earn.
That sounds great in theory, but the problem is that CryptoZoo has reportedly never been in a playable state, despite users spending up to $500,000 in the game. In fact, Coffeezilla reveals that users bought $2.5 million worth of eggs the first day these NFTs were available, without the game even launching. The zoo’s coin currency also managed to reach a market cap of over $2 billion before launch as well.
To make matters worse, a victim of the CryptoZoo scam under the name Helicopter Bob also revealed that the ability to claim the zoo’s coin rewards did not work at the launch of the game, and still does not work to this day. This means that for all the money that investors funneled into CryptoZoo, no one could get anything back. Those who invested with cryptocurrencies such as Etheruem were reportedly unable to even hatch the NFT eggs they had purchased, with CryptoZoo support reportedly claiming that the service was down.
Logan Paul himself remained pretty much radio silent throughout the fiasco, with many believing he had left the project altogether. Speaking, Paul claimed that the cause of the disaster was down to behind-the-scenes drama, with the game’s code allegedly being held hostage by a developer for a $1 million ransom. However, when Coffeezilla reached out to the same developer, he claimed that he did indeed take the code, but was holding it hostage for money that Paul owed the development team for work on CryptoZoo.
Paul has responded to Coffeezilla’s report, calling it “simply not true”. He then went on to say that he will explain everything on the next episode of Impaulsive on January 3, where he claims bad actors will be “exposed, explained and held fully accountable.” Both Paul and Coffeezilla have also invited each other to their own shows, although nothing is set in stone right now. Regardless of what happens next week, this whole saga is just another example that you probably shouldn’t be spending thousands on JPEGs.
