KEY POINTS
In a new documentary by YouTube journalist Graham Bensinger, Logan Paul reveals his side of the story related to the CryptoZoo scandal. According to Bensinger, the documentary was prepared over a five-month period involving several interviews with Paul.
Logan Paul claims CryptoZoo wasn’t a scam but a project he couldn’t handle. He admits people lost money but denies any malicious intent, saying he also lost money.
He believes Coffeezilla, a YouTuber and crypto journalist renowned for his in-depth investigations into online scams, unfairly portrayed him as the mastermind behind a scam.
“Everything you just said has an element of truth to it. Here’s the problem. What you just described isn’t a scam. I took on a project that I was simply incapable of handling at the time,” Paul says in the documentary.
Logan Paul’s Buyback Offer
On January 4, Logan Paul shared a post on X, offering to buy back Base Egg and Base Animal CryptoZoo non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for their original purchase price.
He also offered his side of the story of how his project was sabotaged by some “bad actors.”
However, the CryptoZoo community pointed out that accepting Paul’s $2.3 million buyback program meant giving up the right to sue him or CryptoZoo for any further losses. This could be significant, considering estimates suggest investors lost around $16 million on ZOO tokens alone.
What is CryptoZoo Scandal?
CryptoZoo was an animal-themed NFT project launched by Paul and his team in early 2021. These NFTs were to be used in a play-to-earn game, which never came through. But before it became clear that the CryptoZoo project had run into rough weather, the NFTs were available on OpenSea and sold in exchange for ETH and BSC.
Toward the end of 2022, the project was scheduled to accomplish its final goal of launching its own marketplace and native coin, $ZOO. While these goals were achieved by keeping the investors engaged with the project, the game where these NFTS, 10,000 in total, were to be used, was not yet delivered. Around this time, YouTuber Coffeezilla ran a series of three investigative reports on YouTube, stating that CryptoZoo was a scam and Logan had pulled the rug.