DAO Maker founder builds game based on an abandoned Logan Paul project in just 30 days

Degen Zoo, an NFT game inspired by YouTuber Logan Paul’s controversial Crypto Zoo concept, has seen more than 115,000 wallets sign up to join the game, with pledges of over $700 million. DAO Maker founder Christoph Zaknun took on the challenge of building his variation of the discontinued Zoo theme in just 30 days.

In August 2021, Logan Paul announced a project called Crypto Zoo, which involved buying non-fungible token eggs that would supposedly hatch into animals, allowing owners to earn passive income through zoo tokens. The project is said to have raised over 3 million dollars in NFT sales and tens of millions in zoo tokens. However, the project failed to deliver as promised, leaving many participants feeling they had been pulled under the carpet by the influencer.

Inspired by Paul’s Crypto Zoo game, which critics have called a “scam”, Christoph Zaknun’s “Degen Zoo” game simulates the impact of capitalism on animal extinction, with a deflation symbol and an NFT collection of 120 endangered species. Players are motivated to “kill” their NFT, drive their collection to extinction, and raise awareness of the devastating effects of human greed on wildlife. Zaknun has promised to donate all profits from Degen Zoo to charity.

Zaknun’s decision to broadcast daily updates of his progress has garnered interest from over 250,000 people, with more than 30,000 testnet transactions initiated by 3,000 players within days of the initial testnet release.

Logan Paul has reportedly released a video saying that Christoph Zaknun had no right to dictate the necessary development timeline, following criticism that Paul had done nothing for a year after raising money for his own Crypto Zoo project.

Two months ago, self-proclaimed “fraud-busting internet detective” Coffeezilla published a series of exposés investigating and exposing Logan Paul’s NFT project that never was.

In the YouTube videos, investors in the game claimed to have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. After Coffeezilla’s video was released, Logan Paul threatened to sue Coffeezilla for defamation after he accused Paul’s CryptoZoo nonfungible token project of being a “scam”. Soon after, however, Paul deleted his response video directed at Coffeezilla, apologized and promised to drop his threats to file a defamation lawsuit over the videos, saying:

“It was rash and misaligned with the trust issue, so I called him today and apologized.”

Related: YouTuber lures MMA fighter to promote fake NFTs: Nifty Newsletter, 1-7 February

As Cointelegraph reported on February 3, Logan Paul and CryptoZoo were hit with a lawsuit last month alleging that the YouTube influencer’s “scam” was conducting a “rug pull.”

The class action lawsuit accuses executives of Paul and Crypto Zoo of stealing millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from buyers through a fraudulent scheme. The lawsuit was filed on February 2 in the Western District of Texas, with plaintiff Don Holland alleging that Paul and Crypto Zoo executives promised exclusive access to crypto assets and other benefits, but instead made off with the funds.

Cointelegraph reached out to Logan Paul for comment, but had not received one by the time of publication.