YouTuber Logan Paul is no stranger to crypto—or controversy. In a video published Tuesday, he vehemently denied most of the claims YouTuber Coffeezilla had made against his crypto game project, CryptoZoo, and said he intends to sue Coffeezilla, whose real name is Stephen Findeisen, for defamation.
CryptoZoo is an online game on the Binance Smart Chain launched in 2021 where users buy “eggs” that hatch into hybrid animals. According to a company blog post, the animals could yield holders passive income in the form of the ZOO token.
Paul previously said on an August 2021 episode of his podcast that CryptoZoo is “a really fun game that makes you money.” But that vision hasn’t exactly been realized.
The ZOO token has plummeted roughly 89% in the past year, according to PancakeSwap data. And Findeisen spoke with over six different people who claim to have lost thousands each from their CryptoZoo purchases. In total, just six of the individuals claim to have collectively lost nearly $600,000.
The CryptoZoo blog has not published a new post since April 2022, and neither its Instagram nor Twitter page have posted any new content since May 2022. Such a lack of activity could be interpreted as abandonment.
The CryptoZoo Twitter account did, however, suddenly retweet Paul’s Coffeezilla response video Tuesday—and Paul insists that CryptoZoo is not dead yet.
“CryptoZoo is coming. I will make damn sure of it,” Paul said in his video.
Paul denied that he ever scammed his fanbase through CryptoZoo and called Findeisen’s three-part series about the project “deeply unethical, dangerously misleading, and illegal.”
“You led the charge to drive and monetize a narrative telling millions of people that I’m a fraud or I tried to scam my audience,” Paul said. “That is patently false.”
Paul claimed that Findeisen actually knows Paul is innocent but was “twisting” facts and published the videos anyway. Paul argued that Findeisen “published a defamatory hit piece fully knowing I was innocent.”
Attorney and Adjunct Professor of Law Andrew Rossow told Decrypt that because Paul is a public figure, he would need to prove “actual malice” or that Findeisen published the videos with a “reckless disregard for the truth” in order for a court to take Paul’s case seriously.
“I think the biggest question that remains unanswered as of press time, which is at the heart of a potential defamation claim, is whether or not Paul’s ‘CryptoZoo’ was actually a ‘scam’—one that Paul intentionally created for the purposes of intentionally misleading and defrauding investors,” Rossow said.
When it comes to whether Findeisen could be held liable in court, Rossow said that more information is needed on all of the steps Findeisen took toward “obtaining the truth” from Paul.
Logan Paul responded. TL;DW
0 apologies
0 addressing victims
0 accountability
I will reply in full when I organize my thoughts, but for now, Logan accuses me of not reaching out to him directly until Dec 24, 2022…but doesn’t mention I reached out over a year prior on Instagram. pic.twitter.com/5AfEfDXFwj
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 3, 2023
While Paul might have plans to take legal action, he doesn’t disagree with everything in Coffeezilla’s series. Paul did agree with Findeisen’s assessment of former CryptoZoo employee Eddie Ibanez, alleging that Ibanez is a “professional con man.”
Paul said Ibanez, who was previously listed on CryptoZoo’s website as their “scientist,” is currently “being investigated by a higher authority that I cannot speak on.”
Paul also took issue with Findeisen’s interview with former CryptoZoo engineer Zach Kelling, who told Findeisen that he had a team of 30 engineers working on the project for $50,000 a week but were never paid. Paul said Kelling only had three engineers.
“I got everything stolen from me and our community,” Paul said of the CryptoZoo fiasco, claiming that he and his manager Jeffrey Levin have only lost money on CryptoZoo.
Paul also claims that Findeisen’s published phone call interview with Levin was “illegal” and makes Findeisen “like an internet criminal” because he had not been granted permission to publicize the call.
Neither Paul nor Levin have responded to Decrypt’s requests for comment.
But Paul did spend some time addressing the controversy on the latest episode of his Impaulsive podcast Wednesday.
“The guy is good,” Paul said of the Coffeezilla CryptoZoo videos. “He is a very good storyteller and he is very, very manipulative.”
Regardless, Paul intends to take legal action against Findeisen for the trio of Coffeezilla YouTube videos.
“I suggest you use the money you got from pumping your Patreon to hire a good lawyer—you’re gonna need it,” Paul said in his Tuesday response video. “I’ll see you in court.”
In a message to Decrypt, Findeisen said he has not yet received any legal action from Paul’s team.
“The fact Logan is suing me instead of the criminals and con-men he hired says it all,” Findeisen told Decrypt via direct message. “He took zero accountability. Zero apologies. He just wants to save his own reputation instead of cleaning up the mess that he and his team created.”
