Logan Paul's Newest NFT Project Is Being Called a Scam. The 27-Year-Old Shells Out $1.3 Million to Disappointed Players

Logan Paul is no stranger to controversy.

Logan Paul and CryptoZooPhoto byMaverick clothing (edited by juegosnftop.com)

But the 27-year-old Ohio-born viral superstar’s latest fall from grace may be all his booming career can handle. As a social media icon, podcaster, WWE wrestler, and co-founder of hydration company "Prime", Logan is used to being in the spotlight.

But with legal allegations swirling, Logan's latest NFT project, CryptoZoo, has recently made headlines for the wrong reasons. Something the internet is calling a scam, scandal, or at the very least, mis-executed.

In a 3-part series titled, "Investigating Logan Paul's Biggest Scam", YouTuber, CoffeeZilla, has recently propelled this story into mainstream news, summarizing it as,

"A blockchain game that earned millions but never worked... leaving thousands of victims in its wake."

A year in the making, Coffeezilla's documentary has now garnered over 19 million views and has spawned a mass revolt against the high-flying social media superstar, after revealing:

• Leaked text messages
• Stories from unpaid employees
• Incriminating evidence found on the blockchain

Although CryptoZoo's clever terms of service prohibit a joint effort such as a class action lawsuit, individuals are coming forward to recover millions in lost investments -- single players reporting to have lost upwards of $500K.

According to Logan, CryptoZoo was intended as,

"A really fun game that makes you money."

On the surface, the idea of CryptoZoo is not a bad one.

An investment game largely based on Logan's known love for Pokemon cards, in which players could buy, trade, and breed CryptoZoo Animals before withdrawing their Yield and cashing in on their investment.

Here's how CryptoZoo works (in theory):

Players would first buy the cryptocurrency, "$Zoo", just like you would any other cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.). With these $Zoo tokens, players could then buy eggs which would then hatch into $Zoo animals (called Base Animals) that could eventually be bred to create Hybrid Animals.

Animals were verifiable on the blockchain and saved as handmade NFTs, by a team of digital artists.

Depending on the rarity of your CryptoZoo Animal, it would receive a value (called a Yield). Players would profit from the game by selling their Yield -- just like any other stock or cryptocurrency.

Problems arose when it came to execution:

Being that investigations are still ongoing, it's not fair to say that Logan or his team willfully lied to consumers in a ploy to steal their money. But, the execution of the project was full of red flags immediately after its launch, in September, 2021:

1. The images weren't handmade:

Once the first batch of eggs were hatched, images began to surface of what players spent their hard-earned money on.

CryptoZoo Hybrid Animals.Photo byCryptoZooworld.com

Instead of NFTs created by skilled artists, they received digitally altered Adobe look-alike stock photos.

2. Players couldn’t withdrawal their profits:

When hatch day approached, on Nov.3rd, 2021, players weren't to withdraw their Yields, meaning they couldn't profit from their investments. Some players, couldn't even hatch their eggs.

3. An ethically arguable "stealth launch"

As reported by vulture.com, under the guidance of Jake “the CryptoKing” Greenbaum, Logan and his team would "stealth launch a presale for the $ZOO coin, on July 11, 2021, and buy out the liquidity pool for a discount before Paul announced it to the public on August 18."

This allowed Logan and 5 members of his team to cash in on the tokens, shorting the stock in the process.

But, despite all the red flags to potential investors, Logan is a master marketer.

And, with a social media audience in the hundreds of millions, on the day of the "Egg Drop", September 3rd, 2021, $2.5 million in Eggs were sold and $Zoo tokens hit a market cap of $2 billion.

But, as more people began to speak out following CoffeeZilla's documentary, including a lead developer who claims to have not been paid $1 million in owed wages, the internet took notice.

After initially responding to the controversy by threatening to sue Coffeezilla for creating "a defamatory hit piece", Logan has since looked to make reparations -- offering players who meet specific requirements refunds on their current Egg holdings.

In a Tweet issued since the controversy, Logan shared his "3-step plan for CryptZoo, including a $1.3M reward program for disappointed players"

Logan's latest Twitter responsePhoto by@LoganPaul/Twitter

But, many players feel it’s too little too late -- and this is all just a public relations move to avoid getting sued.

If there's one lesson to be learned from Logan's latest controversy, it's this...

With social media putting more power into the hands of the untrained and inexperienced, it's important to be wary of who and where you put your faith... not to mention, money.

Although this may just be another case of Logan making a "severe and continuous lapse in judgement" by the budding entrepreneur and viral superstar, it should be looked at as a cautionary tale -- hopefully, one the world can learn from.

Hey, I'm Hudson! I write about social media, marketing, and modern entrepreneurship. Hit follow for more stories like this one.