After keeping his mouth shut for about two weeks, Logan Paul has finally spoken out about his blockchain NFT “game” CryptoZoo in a response video to investigative YouTuber Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen. However, if you were hoping for an explanation of what went wrong with the project, you will be sorely disappointed. Instead, Paul spends his time discrediting Coffeezilla’s sources and reporting while also admitting that, yes, a lot of the people on the project were “bad actors” and saying his only mistake was trusting them. I take it back: He’s not on his redemption arc.
let me catch up with you real quick Coffeezilla, a YouTuber known for investigating scammers and scammers in the crypto space, spent a year investigating Logan Paul and his “really fun money-making game,” CryptoZoo. This “game” was set up to generate passive income for players. You buy the game’s currency, Zoo Coins, to spend on Egg NFTs that hatch animals. You can breed these animals to make hybrids, with rarer ones earning more Zoo Coins, which can then be cashed out in IRL money. It sounded tempting in theory, but was obviously a carpet move in practice, as members of Paul’s team (though not Paul himself) sold their coins early to make millions, while Paul’s fervent fans and early investors lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Coffeezilla’s report . Based on its three part series, CryptoZoo appeared to be a farce.
Continue reading: YouTuber: Logan Paul’s NFT “game” is a major crypto scam
Logan Paul has chosen to remain silent for much of Coffeezilla’s reports and posts, but not anymore! On Jan. 3, Paul uploaded his response to Coffeezilla’s investigation to YouTube, saying he would “defend himself with facts” while making harsh insults such as saying Coffeezilla continues to “transform from an investigator into a gossip channel” and him called the “Keemstar” of crypto in finance.” Uff, that stings.
Anyway, in his response video, Paul focuses on what he calls three “inconsistencies” in Coffeezilla’s reports. The first concerned the CryptoZoo developer, who fled to Switzerland with the game’s source code and held him hostage for a million dollars. Paul accuses Coffeezilla of keeping the person anonymous and calling him “Z” in his reports. It turns out that this developer’s name is Zach Kelling and, according to Paul, committed “multiple felonies” involving armed robbery and obstruction of justice.
In his video, Paul shows papers purported to be official documents from Johnson County Court in Kansas relating to Kelling’s alleged charges. (Kotaku could not independently verify these facts, and the rep for the Johnson County District Court records office said that “there were no public records” for Zach Kelling.) Paul brings this up to slander Kelling’s character and to imply that the Dinge Kelling said in Coffeezilla’s videos – that he has 30 engineers under his management and burns $50,000 a week on the CryptoZoo project – is completely false. According to Paul, he only had three engineers, not 30.
Paul then admits he certainly worked with that “unappetizing person,” but he frames the mistake as being overly trusting, saying, “I think that’s what I get from trusting the team I’m on in reviewing and managing.” the hiring process. He describes CryptoZoo’s former lead developer, Eddie Ibanez, as a “con man who fooled billionaires, the Mormon Church, the owner of the New York Yankees, and now me.”
He then slanders another of Coffeezilla’s sources, a man named Emilio, whom Coffeezilla interviewed for his reports. Paul suggests that Coffeezilla should have known that Emilio was an untrustworthy individual previously involved in two rug pulls and therefore a poor source for his reporting. Paul also takes a moment to challenge Coffeezilla’s claim that eggs can’t be hatched in CryptoZoo, saying that “a second of research” would have proved otherwise, and shows footage of the “hatched” ones Eggs of the game to reveal images of elephants, ducks and other animals.
Finally, Paul refines a recorded phone conversation Coffeezilla had with Paul’s manager Jeffrey Levin, parts of which were then used in Coffeezilla’s reports, allegedly without Levin’s permission. Under California invasion of privacy laws, it is illegal to record a conversation without the consent of all parties because it is a two-party consent state. That’s the stickiest point in Paul’s cantankerous threat if they stand trial.
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“Despite not verifying backgrounds, not corroborating evidence, accepting the words of several criminals as truth and breaking the law, you still publicized the slander,” says Paul, before claiming that several “bad actors” were removed from the project . and that he and his manager Jeff “have not made any money from CryptoZoo and will never make any money. In fact, we only lost money trying to pick up the pieces.”
Logan Paul ends his video by assuring viewers that CryptoZoo is still coming, despite Coffeezilla’s claim that it’s not actually happening. He also threatens Coffeezilla with legal action over the “defamation” and says he’ll need a good lawyer. However, Paul is still open to Coffeezilla appearing on his podcast Impaulsive.
Kotaku reached out to Paul for comment.
In a brief email exchange with Kotaku, Coffeezilla repeated what he said on Twitter about Paul’s answer. He said a full answer will come “if I organize my thoughts.” trade strikes with Paul online for the details of the year-long investigation.
“The fact that Logan is suing me and not the criminals and scammers he hired says it all,” Coffeezilla said. “He took no responsibility. Zero apologies. He just wants to save his own reputation.”
As for Zach Kelling, Coffeezilla said he just found out about Kelling’s alleged previous lawsuits.
“These ‘legal battles’ happened in the early 2000s[2001 I think?],” he said. “If Logan’s character standard is digging back years to judge people by their lowest moment, I don’t think he’s going to win this fight. Regardless, I have no interest in whether Zach Kelling is good or bad. I didn’t hire him. My job as a journalist is to reach all parties. Logan had accused Zach of stealing his code. I reached out to Zach for his story and then got back to Logan and his manager in response. Logan and his manager chose not to comment and then got angry when I quote the man they hired.”
As is Paul’s answer be received, some on the internet are mocking his pointing tactics that, whether intentional or not, he hired scammers and scammers to work on CryptoZoo. In a reaction video, Twitch streamer Hasan Piker shows pauses amid Paul’s claims to say, “Not a single person thinks that anyone involved in this situation is a good person. You hired her, you fucking idiot!” Piker goes on to cite Paul’s claims in the Putting the Ls Together video. Yes, that’s definitely a way to see it.