Logan Paul's CryptoZoo scam
December 23, 2022 11:23 AM Subscribe
Youtuber Coffeezilla has posted a 3-part series digging into Logan Paul's CryptoZoo project. What he found wasn't pretty. A (very) brief summary can be found here.
I've only watched the first part so far. I was really appalled by how many of the people he interviewed cited their trust in Logan Paul as a reason that they invested—there's no way Logan Paul would scam people, right?
I mean, I know that people have bad taste. I know that parasocial relationships can foster a sense of misplaced trust. I know that crypto selects for the gullible and those with gambling addictions that they desperately try to rationalize as "investment", i.e. people whose judgment is already not great.
But it strains credulity. Logan Paul.
But then, on consideration, I think there is probably some (deliberate) elision of their true motives here: Some of them were probably just hoping to get in on the scam early enough to make money on the poor suckers lower down on the pyramid. In this case, they just didn't know it would be dead on arrival and that they would be the suckers left holding the bag. But by not talking about this motivation among many crypto scam investors, they end up having to pretend to be the type of people who "trusted" Logan Paul.
I've noticed that Coffeezilla doesn't really address this very often. He's more focused on going after the people at the very top. He would probably have trouble getting interviews if really questioned investors' motives instead of taking them at face value. And it's good for optics; it probably keeps him from alienating some people in the audience who might really not understand the scam and benefit from learning about it. I don't know how I feel about it, though.
Fucking Logan Paul.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:54 AM on December 23, 2022 [30 favorites]
I mean, I know that people have bad taste. I know that parasocial relationships can foster a sense of misplaced trust. I know that crypto selects for the gullible and those with gambling addictions that they desperately try to rationalize as "investment", i.e. people whose judgment is already not great.
But it strains credulity. Logan Paul.
But then, on consideration, I think there is probably some (deliberate) elision of their true motives here: Some of them were probably just hoping to get in on the scam early enough to make money on the poor suckers lower down on the pyramid. In this case, they just didn't know it would be dead on arrival and that they would be the suckers left holding the bag. But by not talking about this motivation among many crypto scam investors, they end up having to pretend to be the type of people who "trusted" Logan Paul.
I've noticed that Coffeezilla doesn't really address this very often. He's more focused on going after the people at the very top. He would probably have trouble getting interviews if really questioned investors' motives instead of taking them at face value. And it's good for optics; it probably keeps him from alienating some people in the audience who might really not understand the scam and benefit from learning about it. I don't know how I feel about it, though.
Fucking Logan Paul.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:54 AM on December 23, 2022 [30 favorites]
I guess the question that's on my mind is why isn't Logan Paul in jail? I've never watched a single thing he's made and honestly barely even know anything about him or his brother, but every time I hear about him or what he's up to it sounds like it's at least a public nuisance and/or misdemeanor, if not an outright felony. Why haven't we made an example of this kid yet, if only to dissuade other like-minded sociopaths from following the Youtube influencer-to-cultural supervillainy pipeline?
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:58 AM on December 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:58 AM on December 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
"Look around the table. If you don't see a sucker, get up, because you're the sucker."
posted by box at 12:04 PM on December 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by box at 12:04 PM on December 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
Gaaawed that three-parter could have been 5 minutes but all hail playing the algorithm.
posted by alex_skazat at 12:11 PM on December 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by alex_skazat at 12:11 PM on December 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
Moreover, Logan Paul has come under fire for using Adobe Stock images and photoshopping them into ‘art’ as part of his CryptoZoo NFT project, despite Logan Paul and his team’s claims that they are “hand made art.”
I can imagine LP's response to this criticism:
"You see my hands typing in my password? You see my hands moving this mouse and right-clicking the button? You see me eagerly rubbing my hands together like Mr. Burns thinking about all the money I'm going to get from chumps?"
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:12 PM on December 23, 2022
I can imagine LP's response to this criticism:
"You see my hands typing in my password? You see my hands moving this mouse and right-clicking the button? You see me eagerly rubbing my hands together like Mr. Burns thinking about all the money I'm going to get from chumps?"
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:12 PM on December 23, 2022
I dunno who this “Coffeezilla” person is, but I do like hearing about a scam associated with the word “crypto”!
posted by Going To Maine at 12:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh goodness, I was going to post this later today. It is quite a thing, really. The full series is worth watching just to see how it all unravels. Sometimes a good novel is worth reading.
posted by hippybear at 12:35 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 12:35 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've noticed that Coffeezilla doesn't really address this very often. He's more focused on going after the people at the very top. He would probably have trouble getting interviews if really questioned investors' motives instead of taking them at face value. And it's good for optics; it probably keeps him from alienating some people in the audience who might really not understand the scam and benefit from learning about it. I don't know how I feel about it, though.
You need to watch part 3, then. Maybe part 2 in between.
posted by hippybear at 12:36 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
You need to watch part 3, then. Maybe part 2 in between.
posted by hippybear at 12:36 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
tl;dw --
A lot of those scammed were children because the game was being marketed toward them.
posted by hippybear at 12:37 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
A lot of those scammed were children because the game was being marketed toward them.
posted by hippybear at 12:37 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
You need to watch part 3, then. Maybe part 2 in between.
I plan to, but this was a general comment on the channel, and why I qualified it as "not very often" instead of "never." I've watched a lot of his videos, but not all of them.
Also, I was clearly talking about interviews in the first video, with people who are not children.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:41 PM on December 23, 2022
I plan to, but this was a general comment on the channel, and why I qualified it as "not very often" instead of "never." I've watched a lot of his videos, but not all of them.
Also, I was clearly talking about interviews in the first video, with people who are not children.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:41 PM on December 23, 2022
But it strains credulity. Logan Paul.
Seriously. Of all the stupid social media age celebrities or influencers that I wouldn't trust with half a stale cracker he has to be near the top of the list of least trustworthy.
I mean his whole schtick basically boils down to distilled "It's just a prank, bro!", which I can sincerely imagine him saying with a straight face in courtroom defending himself after getting sued for a prank or stunt gone wrong or after being charged with fraud.
posted by loquacious at 12:41 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
Seriously. Of all the stupid social media age celebrities or influencers that I wouldn't trust with half a stale cracker he has to be near the top of the list of least trustworthy.
I mean his whole schtick basically boils down to distilled "It's just a prank, bro!", which I can sincerely imagine him saying with a straight face in courtroom defending himself after getting sued for a prank or stunt gone wrong or after being charged with fraud.
posted by loquacious at 12:41 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
Logan Paul successfully scamming someone over crypto seems like both a victimless crime, in that anyone it works on basically deserves it, and one that should be met with harsh penalties - possibly for both parties.
posted by Artw at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Let me get this straight, a bunch of people that ranged from fake-famous to fake-successful founded a fake company that used fake money allowing other people to invest their own fake money on a pyramid scheme centered on fake art? And then... it was a scam?
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:29 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:29 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
allowing other people to invest their own fake money on a pyramid scheme
Real money was taken from investors in a product they were promised would be produced that was never produced. If you take the whole crypto part out of this, that's simple fraud.
posted by hippybear at 1:43 PM on December 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
Real money was taken from investors in a product they were promised would be produced that was never produced. If you take the whole crypto part out of this, that's simple fraud.
posted by hippybear at 1:43 PM on December 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
a young guy I know was running a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop last summer. Delicious coffee. He had a sign in the window. EVERYONE SERVED EXCEPT FASCISTS AND CRYPTO BROS (something like that)
When I quizzed him about it, he said, "well, fascists are no-brainers obviously. But what's a crypto bro really? It's some guy who figures there's a way to game the system and get filthy rich without really doing anything of value to anyone anywhere. Nothing. Just be smart/lucky enough to get your money into the right scam at the right time and watch a thousand bucks turn into a million bucks, then a billion, then retire to some place where it's always sunny and all your neighbours are also rich and useless. Fuck those guys! And they really are usually guys."
posted by philip-random at 1:45 PM on December 23, 2022 [61 favorites]
When I quizzed him about it, he said, "well, fascists are no-brainers obviously. But what's a crypto bro really? It's some guy who figures there's a way to game the system and get filthy rich without really doing anything of value to anyone anywhere. Nothing. Just be smart/lucky enough to get your money into the right scam at the right time and watch a thousand bucks turn into a million bucks, then a billion, then retire to some place where it's always sunny and all your neighbours are also rich and useless. Fuck those guys! And they really are usually guys."
posted by philip-random at 1:45 PM on December 23, 2022 [61 favorites]
Logan Paul successfully scamming someone over crypto seems like both a victimless crime,
In a world with safety nets, where everyone is financially secure and a nobody is desperate that might make more sense than it does in this one.
posted by mhoye at 2:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
In a world with safety nets, where everyone is financially secure and a nobody is desperate that might make more sense than it does in this one.
posted by mhoye at 2:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
All these scammers need to go to jail, not just SBF and the FTX people, all of them. Let them find this Satoshi guy too and lock him up.
posted by interogative mood at 2:44 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 2:44 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Coffeezilla is an independent financial journalist specializing in scams. He broke the FTX scandal a little before it hit the news.
He got into exposing frauds because his mother had cancer and he was angry at people selling fake cures. For a while, he was exposing financial "gurus"-- people who sell worthless financial advice/classes which is actually upselling additional worthless advice, and unsurprisingly has more recently been exposing crypto/NFT scams.
Long interview with Lex Fridman.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:16 PM on December 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
He got into exposing frauds because his mother had cancer and he was angry at people selling fake cures. For a while, he was exposing financial "gurus"-- people who sell worthless financial advice/classes which is actually upselling additional worthless advice, and unsurprisingly has more recently been exposing crypto/NFT scams.
Long interview with Lex Fridman.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:16 PM on December 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
Part of what makes Coffeezilla good for this is that he still seems to believe that there could be non-scammy crypto projects. Instead of dismissing it all with, "Well, duh, of course it's full of scams, it's crypto," like I do, he's genuinely appalled by the scammers.
posted by clawsoon at 3:22 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by clawsoon at 3:22 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
A lot of those scammed were children because the game was being marketed toward them.
So now I've watched all three videos and none of it seems to contradict what I wrote or to mention children being scammed. Where does he talk about children buying in to CryptoZoo?
It's possible I missed it because I zoned out or something, but I'd think children even being able to buy into this crypto scam in the first place would have been a bigger talking point!
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:16 PM on December 23, 2022
So now I've watched all three videos and none of it seems to contradict what I wrote or to mention children being scammed. Where does he talk about children buying in to CryptoZoo?
It's possible I missed it because I zoned out or something, but I'd think children even being able to buy into this crypto scam in the first place would have been a bigger talking point!
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:16 PM on December 23, 2022
Satoshi's head is cryopreserved, itself another form of scam.
If Satoshi were two people, then the second one committed suicide.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:18 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
If Satoshi were two people, then the second one committed suicide.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:18 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Clarification:
The closest mention to children buying into CryptoZoo seems to be one of the investors, who says his daughter had a couple eggs, but there is no mention of her buying them herself. There are also some marketing lies quoted about how kids will love them game. (The developers kids love playing it! Even though it doesn't exist...)
Kids being scammed should be a huge aspect of this story. I don't really want to rewatch the whole thing, so can you clarify whether you were talking about these quotes at the end, or whether I missed a bombshell earlier, that, for some reason, CoffeeZilla decided kind of gloss over?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:32 PM on December 23, 2022
The closest mention to children buying into CryptoZoo seems to be one of the investors, who says his daughter had a couple eggs, but there is no mention of her buying them herself. There are also some marketing lies quoted about how kids will love them game. (The developers kids love playing it! Even though it doesn't exist...)
Kids being scammed should be a huge aspect of this story. I don't really want to rewatch the whole thing, so can you clarify whether you were talking about these quotes at the end, or whether I missed a bombshell earlier, that, for some reason, CoffeeZilla decided kind of gloss over?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:32 PM on December 23, 2022
Kids don’t have money. You want to extract money from their parents via “Robux”.
posted by Artw at 4:41 PM on December 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:41 PM on December 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
Really by now the "scam" part of "crypto-scam" ought to be redundant
posted by mbo at 6:20 PM on December 23, 2022
posted by mbo at 6:20 PM on December 23, 2022
Who are all these people and why are they wasting their money they should all give their money to me thank you.
posted by not_on_display at 6:39 PM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by not_on_display at 6:39 PM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Who are all these people and why are they wasting their money they should all give their money to me thank you.
My impression based on all the "wonderful community" sort of comments that you see on crypto subreddits is that you have to give them a warm feeling of hope and then they'll give you their money.
(Not unlike many churches, come to think of it...)
posted by clawsoon at 8:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
My impression based on all the "wonderful community" sort of comments that you see on crypto subreddits is that you have to give them a warm feeling of hope and then they'll give you their money.
(Not unlike many churches, come to think of it...)
posted by clawsoon at 8:23 PM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
There is not a sympathetic character in this thing. Any of the amounts of money mentioned would see me happily retired. Ugh.
posted by maxwelton at 9:08 PM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 9:08 PM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
He found his fortune by being an obnoxious dickhead. Would you want Logan Paul's wealth if you actually had to BE Logan Paul?
It's not worth it.
posted by adept256 at 9:34 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's not worth it.
posted by adept256 at 9:34 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the problem there is that, if I had to BE Logan Paul, I'd then think that being Logan Paul was awesome.
aaaaaaaaaaand i dont
yeah not worth it
posted by not_on_display at 9:51 PM on December 23, 2022
aaaaaaaaaaand i dont
yeah not worth it
posted by not_on_display at 9:51 PM on December 23, 2022
Not unlike many churches
Now I can see someone saying "Hey look, I see Mary in my NFT" and next thing you know you have a real-world megacathedral Our Lady of The NFT raking in soooo much money.
posted by riverlife at 10:37 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Now I can see someone saying "Hey look, I see Mary in my NFT" and next thing you know you have a real-world megacathedral Our Lady of The NFT raking in soooo much money.
posted by riverlife at 10:37 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
they told me this thing was non fungible but look, it's completely covered in funge
posted by flabdablet at 4:39 AM on December 24, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:39 AM on December 24, 2022 [11 favorites]
I got through the first video. Right after talking about how major features are broken, there's a bit where "investors" are complaining that Logan Paul has stopped marketing it.
But of course, if he did continue marketing it, he'd be promoting a game that is broken.
You don't spend 500k on a game just because you want to play, and they were buying these eggs before there was any game to play. So yeah, they were hoping to sell these items for a higher price later. And that's the framework where concerns that Logan Paul isn't promoting it are of equal or greater importance to whether the game entirely works. They want an influx of new players to buy their stuff.
posted by RobotHero at 11:34 AM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
But of course, if he did continue marketing it, he'd be promoting a game that is broken.
You don't spend 500k on a game just because you want to play, and they were buying these eggs before there was any game to play. So yeah, they were hoping to sell these items for a higher price later. And that's the framework where concerns that Logan Paul isn't promoting it are of equal or greater importance to whether the game entirely works. They want an influx of new players to buy their stuff.
posted by RobotHero at 11:34 AM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
a real-world megacathedral Our Lady of The NFT raking in soooo much money
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter to improve my targeting and conversion stats. We’ve got a new airdrop coming up, and I really want to pump the funnel, get this locked-in and really put the hammer on the equivocals for max return.
posted by aramaic at 12:26 PM on December 24, 2022
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter to improve my targeting and conversion stats. We’ve got a new airdrop coming up, and I really want to pump the funnel, get this locked-in and really put the hammer on the equivocals for max return.
posted by aramaic at 12:26 PM on December 24, 2022
Okay, in the second video, I'd give some push back on the "fake orphan" bit, because an orphan can still have an adoptive mother.
Yeah, the guy has instances of lying, but specifically the orphan bit. It is not a slam dunk contradiction that he says he's an orphan and there's also a living woman that he calls his mother. I don't want to condone the idea that you can't call your adoptive mother your mother, right.
posted by RobotHero at 12:34 PM on December 24, 2022
Yeah, the guy has instances of lying, but specifically the orphan bit. It is not a slam dunk contradiction that he says he's an orphan and there's also a living woman that he calls his mother. I don't want to condone the idea that you can't call your adoptive mother your mother, right.
posted by RobotHero at 12:34 PM on December 24, 2022
A longer profile of Eddie Ibanez from Valentine's Day: Philly-born tech founder who falsely claimed he had an Eagles Super Bowl ring and helped the CIA hunt terrorists got $1.5 million in PPP loans as his company went up in flames
And a blog post about writing that article: Sunday with a Source. And My Mom. A year in pursuit of CryptoZoo's Eddie Ibanez.
It says this about the orphan bit:
And a blog post about writing that article: Sunday with a Source. And My Mom. A year in pursuit of CryptoZoo's Eddie Ibanez.
It says this about the orphan bit:
Ibanez claimed to be an orphan, erasing nearly all evidence of the single mother who’d raised him on Waterloo Avenue — save for an inconvenient Fox & Friends segment from 2017 where Jackie, now his ex-wife, cooks a “family recipe” from her then-mother-in-law...posted by clawsoon at 8:09 AM on December 25, 2022
It’s true Ibanez was enrolled at New York Military Academy, after his mother withdrew him from Ziegler Elementary School in Frankford for a better life in upstate New York, but according to his former classmates, he was never a hacker responsible for stealing 15 million credit card numbers from AOL, or crashing MTV.com, as he recently told podcaster Trish Regan.
So it works out it was a lie, but the way Coffeezilla presented it came across as, "How can an ORPHAN have a MOM?"
It fits a pattern of lying to embellish his background, which also reminds me of Tommy Tallarico.
posted by RobotHero at 9:00 AM on December 25, 2022
It fits a pattern of lying to embellish his background, which also reminds me of Tommy Tallarico.
posted by RobotHero at 9:00 AM on December 25, 2022
Logan Paul posted a response video last week in which he threatened Coffezilla with legal action, took zero responsibility, and explained that he didn’t scam anyone, it was all those “con men” (whom he hired, working for the company he was running) who did the scamming.
He later retracted and deleted the video and dropped the lawsuit threats (original Twitter link).
posted by mbrubeck at 7:50 AM on January 9, 2023
He later retracted and deleted the video and dropped the lawsuit threats (original Twitter link).
posted by mbrubeck at 7:50 AM on January 9, 2023
A couple of Youtubers have offered their own remixes of Logan Paul's apology/general operating procedure:
Fixing Logan Paul - Ozzy Man Reviews
POV: Logan Paul Steals Your Wallet
posted by clawsoon at 12:55 PM on January 9, 2023
Fixing Logan Paul - Ozzy Man Reviews
POV: Logan Paul Steals Your Wallet
posted by clawsoon at 12:55 PM on January 9, 2023
LOL
Change of Heart: Logan Paul Apologizes to Coffeezilla Amidst Fallout Over NFT Project
“I will be taking accountability, apologizing, and coming forward with a plan in the near future. Thank you all for believing in this project and sticking with me. It was rash and misaligned with the true issue at hand, so I called him today and apologized… the war is not with Coffee. In fact, I’m grateful he brought this to light.”
posted by chavenet at 6:37 AM on January 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Change of Heart: Logan Paul Apologizes to Coffeezilla Amidst Fallout Over NFT Project
“I will be taking accountability, apologizing, and coming forward with a plan in the near future. Thank you all for believing in this project and sticking with me. It was rash and misaligned with the true issue at hand, so I called him today and apologized… the war is not with Coffee. In fact, I’m grateful he brought this to light.”
posted by chavenet at 6:37 AM on January 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
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Seriously, I’m no longer surprised but am still disappointed that so many people fall for these passive income schemes. If there’s a low risk way to beat bond returns, the likes of us aren’t going to be invited.
posted by adamsc at 11:30 AM on December 23, 2022 [15 favorites]