Given the Logan Paul dubious story on YouTube, it probably comes as no surprise that his CryptoZoo NFT project has allegedly turned out to be a scam. Some investors ended up losing up to half a million dollars, according to an independent YouTube reporter Coffeezilla. CryptoZoo’s development has stalled due to alleged non-payment of coders.
Paul, 27, rose to fame in 2013 by posting sketches on Vine; but when the short video platform shut down, he transitioned to YouTube and even wrestled in WWE. In August 2021, Paul took his youtube podcast to advertise your NFT project.
“It’s so much fun. It provides performance with a token, it can make you money, and as a person who understands, I think the NFT space is enough to know what works, what people want and what they’re looking for, I think my game is going for make some waves,” Paul said.
between his main youtube channel and his podcastPaul has about 28 million subscribers, plus another 24.6 million Instagram followers and 16.6 million on Tik Tok. In other words, it had the audience needed to generate excitement around a new NFT collection.
Paul fans could buy an NFT of an egg, which hatches into an animal that is assigned one of five rarity levels. These animals can be bred to produce more eggs that hatch hybrid animals, which also have specific rarity levels. When animals hatch, they produce $ZOO tokens – the rarer the animal, the more it produces.
Paul promised fans that they would be able to play with their animals, which would eventually “enter the metaverse,” according to the CryptoZoo product. road map. But most of the product roadmap goals have not been achieved.
Freelance reporter Coffeezilla released a three-part video series in late December, chronicling his investigation into what went wrong with CryptoZoo. It turns out that Paul had hired several con artists to work on the project.
TechCrunch has reached out to Paul’s manager, Jeff Levin, for comment.
Coffeezilla interviewed Cryptozoo developer “Z” who is holding the code hostage for a million dollars as he claims Paul never paid him. in a response videoPaul claimed that “Z” is actually Zach Kelling, a convicted felon.
“I know what you’re thinking. What kind of idiot would work with an unpleasant individual like Zach Kelling?” Paul says in his response video. He blames this hire on Eddie Ibanez, the former lead developer at CryptoZoo. “I guess that’s it. what I get for trusting the team I trusted to investigate and manage the hiring process for Eddie, who turned out to be a professional con man.”
But Ibáñez’s con-artist past is not new information. In February 2022, Philadelphia culture blog Billy Penn, part of the NPR regional network, reported an investigation in the past of the technological founder.
While operating a data analysis company called Zenabi in 2019, Ibáñez was accused of sharing sensitive data about one of his clients, the Mormon church, with another client, the International Champions Cup. He also claimed on his website to have worked with the CIA. and two NFL teams; he even said he had a Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl ring from his 2018 win. But Billy Penn reported that Ibanez never met anyone from the Eagles until after the Super Bowl, and while Ibanez did have a few meetings with the team, these conversations never turned into a real partnership. Ibanez also claims to have studied at MIT, but Billy Penn was told by the MIT News Bureau that he was never enrolled at the university.
Zenabi then received a total of $1.5 million in PPP loans from the federal government. Around the same time, Ibáñez’s landlord sued for $118,000 in back rent and property damage. According to a former Zenabi employee who spoke with Billy Penn, the FBI is investigating Zenabi for his PPP loans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1buyQRWw8M
Despite an extensive list of suspicious claims, Paul continued to work with Ibáñez until July 2022.
This isn’t the first time Paul has been accused of promoting cryptocurrency scams: In July 2021, he promoted the so-called “shit coin.” think foolthat almost immediately he lost all his “worth.”
Other influencers like Kim Kardashian have faced consequences for promoting cryptocurrency to their followers without the necessary disclosures. The SEC settled with Kardashian for $1.26 million for her association with EthereumMax. Although she wrote “#advertisementat the bottom of his Instagram post, the SEC said he should have disclosed that he was paid $250,000 for the promotion.
What does the future hold for CryptoZoo? Well, nothing, until Logan Paul manages to retrieve that code from Zach Kelling, who, according to Coffeezilla, fled to Switzerland. But Paul ended his response video with a promotional screen, stating that CryptoZoo will arrive in 2023 or 2024.
