Logan Paul's NFT zoo catastrophe takes an unexpected turn: He's buying back the eggs and suing his co-founders

05.01.2024 - 19:28 / pcgamer.com / Logan Paul

One of the last things I did in 2023 was round-up the year's crypto fails, during which I checked-in on an old favourite. In late 2021 mega-influencer Logan Paul, now probably best-known for the PRIME energy drink range and his burgeoning WWE career, began promoting a blockchain project called CryptoZoo, a videogame where players would buy NFT eggs, hatch them into animals, breed them, trade them, and so on.

The egg NFTs went on sale in September 2021 and sold out instantly, but the game as promised would never appear. As time rumbled on and Paul's attention seemed to be elsewhere, the project looked abandoned, and dogged investigation by, among others, the internet detective Coffeezilla began to suggest that CryptoZoo was a scam, taking advantage of Paul's fame and fanbase to hawk worthless assets.

At the time Paul threatened to sue Coffeezilla for the word «scam» before backing down, apologizing, and several months later announcing he would buy back the NFTs from CryptoZoo investors. I noted in the year's roundup that things had since gone quiet and the buyback probably wasn't going to happen. 

Well, I owe the WWE US Champion an apology. Logan Paul has now announced across his social channels that «I am delivering on my promise to buy back Base Egg and Base Animal CryptoZoo NFTs for their original purchase price.» Let's just take a moment to appreciate the faintly farcical phrase «egg buyback».

In a lengthy post Paul claims «the best possible intentions» and that «I never made a single penny from the project, period.» He claims this buyback program involves $2.3 million of his own money, before going on to make some eyebrow-raising accusations about the project.

«CryptoZoo was derailed by bad actors,» says Paul. «Bad actors who DID steal money and who betrayed our team while internally sabotaging the game. This has now been confirmed by an extensive investigation that has involved a forensic analysis of blockchain activity and the review of thousands of communications.»

Paul has filed a counter-claim against two of his fellow defendants in an existing class action suit against CryptoZoo, and includes a link to the filing. He says the lawsuit is based on the above investigation as well as all internal communications and trading activity, and it takes aim specifically at two co-founders on the project, Eduardo Ibanez and Jake Greenbaum. 

«Wait until we successfully launch our eggs and I explain this fucking surgical maneuver we pulled off to remove the snake from the grass it is fucking legendary.»

Paul meet Greenbaum through an interest in Pokemon cards, and soon learned that this guy not only collected cards but nicknames: «because of his supposed expertise in [blockchain & NFT] areas, Mr. Greenbaum