Logan Paul har stadig ikke gjort cryptozoo hele: en buyback, en afskediget svig jakkesæt, og en coffeezilla ærekrænkelse kamp

Logan Paul er en kendt YouTuber, bokser, og WWE performer, der er alt for fortrolig med kontroverser.

He has aired videos purportedly showing unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and built the energy-drink brand Prime, which Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) once urged the FDA to look into over its caffeine content. He previously posted footage of a dead body in Japan’s “suicide forest” of Aokigahara, and he angered PETA with videos showing him shock two dead rats and perform CPR on a koi fish.

Men for en periode, den højeste kritik mærkede ham en cryptocurrency scammer. Med snesevis af millioner af tilhængere på tværs af YouTube, Instagram og TikTok afslørede Paul CryptoZoo i efteråret 2021. Det var et animeret NFT projekt med Pokémon indflydelse til "en rigtig sjov spil, der gør dig penge". Spillere fik at vide, de kunne "race, indsamle og handle eksotiske dyr hybrider på blokkæden" og "inkubere" dyr for lidt over $1.100, i henhold til CoinbaseJo sjældnere dyret, jo mere in- game valuta (zoo tokens) det angiveligt kunne generere hver dag.

Selv om de første 10.000 NFTs solgt hurtigt, en fuldt fungerende spil aldrig ankom.

Investorerne blev røvet - og mange forblev på den måde i årevis.

I januar 2023 afslørede Paul sig. en genopretningsplan med henblik på betale tilbage skuffede købere. Han lovede at afslutte spillet og at "tilbyde en belønning program for spillere, der er skuffet over status for spillet".

Den følgende måned, en gruppe af købere indgivet en klasse-action retssag mod Paul og CryptoZoo, hævder Paul og andre medlemmer af holdet havde svigagtigt rejst millioner fra investorer.

"Paul og andre bag CryptoZoo gjort virksomheden beslutning om at give afkald på en dyr og tidskrævende proces til at skabe en funktionel CryptoZoo spil eller støtte det, og i stedet bevidst påtog sig en ordning for at bedrage Plaintiff og andre forbrugere", sagsanlæg hævdede.

Uden Stephen "Coffeezilla" Findeisen 's arbejde, kan retssagen aldrig være blevet anlagt. Findeisen, en selv-beskrevet online-svig investigator, brugte mere end et år på at grave i CryptoZoo og offentliggjort en tredelt serie på YouTube i december 2022 beskylder projektet om at svigte sine tilhængere. Han interviewede også folk, der sagde, at de havde mistet penge - herunder en australsk investor, der sagde, at han var ude næsten $335,000 og bad om ikke at blive navngivet af frygt for gengældelse.

Findeisen videoer trak snesevis af millioner af synspunkter, og i marts 2023 dukkede han op på "Joe Rogans oplevelse" at diskutere hans resultater. Dengang sagde han: ikke en enkelt investor var blevet tilbagebetalt. Paul, der havde undskyldt til Findeisen i en januar 2023 video efter tidligere der truer med at sagsøge ham, sagde sagsøge YouTuber "ville ikke gavne CryptoZoo interessenter".

CryptoZoo 's tidligere chef ingeniør, Zach Kelling, separat sagde Paul skyldte ham "ikke mindre end $1 million" for hans arbejde og beskyldte Paul for at doxxing ham i et angreb video, at Kansas City indfødte sagde førte til døden trusler. "Jeg dybt ked nogensinde forsøger at hjælpe ham eller hans team", Kelling sagde.

Burned investors were scathing. One buyer who lost $110,000 said a refund alone was “insufficient” and that Paul “should serve some time in jail.” Another called Paul’s conduct “deplorable,” saying “the fact he just tries to hide and hope it goes away is the worst.” A third, who lost $15,000, said he wanted Paul to ask whether his family “would be proud of a serial scammer who can’t man up enough to do the right thing.”

Findeisen budskab til Paul på det tidspunkt var stumpt: "Hvis du giver store løfter, er du nødt til at levere. At slå dine fans er ikke acceptabelt".

Købet, afskedigelsen, og en ærekrænkelse kamp

The story did not stay frozen at “no one has been refunded.” On January 4, 2024, Paul announced a buyback program, ultimately setting aside roughly $2.3 million to repurchase eligible “Base Egg” and “Base Animal” CryptoZoo NFTs at 0.1 Ethereum each — close to their original 2021 mint price. The catch: claimants who took the buyback had to waive their right to sue Paul over the project. The program slowly worked through the backlog; by August 2025, reports indicated roughly 80 percent of claims had been processed and about $1.9 million paid out.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in February 2023 by Texas police officer Don Holland on behalf of about 140 buyers who lost between $100 and $350,000 each, did not survive. On October 29, 2025, U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright in the Western District of Texas dismissed the case, adopting a magistrate judge’s finding that the plaintiffs had failed to show Paul personally profited from the venture and treating his promotional claims as marketing “puffery” rather than fraud. Paul, who learned of the recommendation around the time of his August 2025 wedding, celebrated the ruling as vindication of his long-standing insistence that he “didn’t scam anyone.”

The legal saga is not over. In June 2024, Paul filed his own defamation lawsuit against Findeisen and Coffee Break Productions in San Antonio federal court, arguing that the repeated use of the word “scam” — including in video titles, one of which topped 10 million views — falsely portrayed him as defrauding his own fans. In March 2025, a magistrate judge declined to dismiss Paul’s claims, ruling that calling him a scammer could be read as a statement of fact rather than protected opinion. The dispute was set to reach a jury trial on May 4, 2026, with Findeisen casting the suit as an attempt to punish a critic for reporting and Paul maintaining that the only way to clear his name is in a courtroom. Federal court records show the San Antonio case, Paul v. Findeisen, was terminated on July 21, 2026, after the parties resolved the defamation fight; neither side publicly released settlement terms.

For et andet kig på, hvordan crypto verdens største svig beskyldninger udspiller sig, se vores rapport om, hvordan Kina hævdede, at USA hackede $15 milliarder i Bitcoin fra tiltalte svindler kingpin Chen Zhi.

Se et sammenbrud af CryptoZoo kontroversen og Paul- Coffeezilla juridiske kamp nedenfor: