Refunds for CryptoZoo promised by Logan Paul, provided you don’t sue him, Paul declared on Thursday in a post on X.
For CryptoZoo, the unsuccessful and purportedly fraudulent NFT game modeled after Pokémon that he released in 2021, Logan Paul is giving refunds. What’s the catch? If you receive a refund, you cannot sue him.
Paul declared on Thursday in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he is “personally committing” to buying back NFTs acquired through CryptoZoo with an amount exceeding $2.3 million. Online claims submission is available through February 8.
“I never made a single penny from the project, period. The opposite is true because I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make it happen,” Paul said in his post. “Like you, I was highly disappointed that the game was not delivered.”
In exchange for their eligible NFTs, or “Base Eggs” and “Base Animals,” claimants will get 0.1 ETH. In order to produce “hybrid” creatures that were also NFTs, players were meant to be able to “breed” the animals that “hatched” from the base NFT that they bought. The buy-back scheme is not available for hybrid animals.
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The terms and conditions of the form additionally state that Paul “in his sole discretion deems ineligible” NFTs supplied will not be reimbursed. Claimants must additionally consent to waive any “actual or anticipated claims against Paul” to be eligible for reimbursement; this entails pledging not to sue him regarding CryptoZoo.
The influencer filed a cross-claim in addition to facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly earning millions of dollars in Bitcoin through the promotion of a game that was eventually canceled. He claimed to have “filed a lawsuit in federal court in Texas to hold these bad actors accountable” in a post on X.
“This lawsuit is the result of an exhaustive investigation that included the review of the entirety of conversations and tracking nefarious trading activity related to the project,” Paul continued in his X post. “Nefarious trading activity taken behind our backs, without our knowledge, and with the intention of defrauding us all.”
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Swagenews has learned that according to information provided by Rob Freund, a Los Angeles-based attorney who works with companies and creators, Paul might be trying to minimize damages with the buy-back scheme. Class action lawsuits can be “devastating” for defendants because the damages awarded may include attorney’s fees, punitive damages, and the initial losses incurred by the plaintiff and other class members. Freund proposed that Paul may minimize potential damages by settling with class members on an individual basis and refunding NFTs in return for waiving claims against him.
“Paul may be betting (or at least hoping) that enough people who would otherwise be potential class members will take him up on this offer and drastically reduce his potential exposure in the pending case by doing so,” Freund said. “That would let him angle for a much more favorable settlement.”
When Paul revealed the NFT project on an August 2021 episode of his podcast, “Impaulsive,” he called it a “really fun game that makes you money.” Each NFT was an egg that was meant to hatch into an animal with a level of rarity assigned, and CryptoZoo was promoted as an Ethereum collecting game.
These creatures may be crossed to create hybrids, which come in different rarities. The quantity of $ZOO tokens that each hatched egg was expected to produce depended on how rare the animal was. Every time an animal hatched, players were meant to be able to either purchase more eggs or cash out.
Paul also pledged that interactive minigames would be a part of CryptoZoo and that the project would eventually “enter the metaverse.”
Independent YouTube reporter Coffeezilla conducted a three-part investigation that revealed the project’s demise: players were unable to breed their hatched eggs or cash out, the game’s developers left due to nonpayment, and Paul and his associates were suspected of plotting to manipulate the market.
According to Coffeezilla, the project paid out to two anonymous accounts: one earned $364,000 (92.7697 ETH) and the other received $1 million (260.000 ETH). Approximately $79,875,629, or 1,214,225,001.8 $ZOO, was held by CryptoZoo for “wildlife charities and CryptoZoo development” at the time of Coffeezilla’s statement.
Paul accused a fellow CryptoZoo developer of conniving him and the other members of the company in now-deleted response videos. However, he later announced on Discord to his fans that he would be “taking accountability.” Next, he presented a strategy to reimburse investors and complete the game.
Paul and other CryptoZoo employees are accused of pushing the project to “consumers unfamiliar with digital currency products” and of “manipulating the digital currency market for Zoo Tokens to their advantage,” according to a class action lawsuit that was filed in the Western District of Texas last year.
Paul claimed that Eduardo Ibanez and Jake Greenbaum, who worked on CryptoZoo and were also mentioned in the class action case, were “con artists” who “sabotaged” the project in an answer and cross-claim sent on Thursday. Paul further stated that Greenbaum and Ibanez made “millions,” while he lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the duplicity and deceit of those he trusted.”
But CryptoZoo is no more. Paul said that it was not viable to release it, even after he had personally spent $400,000 to finish it early in the previous year. Additionally, he reminded supporters that the buy-back was not meant to “compensate those who gambled on the crypto market and lost,” but rather to support the game. The Zoo Token was never meant to be an “investment vehicle.”
“Unfortunately, there are too many regulatory hurdles that would need to be cleared that I did not originally understand and would ultimately delay this buy-back even further,” he said. “This buy-back is a way for me to make whole those who intended to play CryptoZoo.”
