Despite already facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit, Logan Paul is facing some new questions regarding his sketchy history with cryptocurrency and whether or not he misled his fans to rake in profits.
Paul is currently in the midst of a lawsuit over a failed crypto project called CryptoZoo. However, according to a report from the BBC, new evidence suggests that the YouTube star promoted multiple investments without revealing he had a financial interest in them. Per the report, the BBC claims to have uncovered that shortly before Paul tweeted about a particular crypto coin in 2021, an anonymous crypto wallet with close connections to his public wallet had traded in the coin.
That anonymous wallet went on to make $120,000.
In 2021, Paul also promoted a series of extremely high-risk crypto tokens called meme coins — tokens that are typically inspired by internet jokes or memes and are supported by online communities.
Recently, the BBC attempted to interview Paul and get his side of the story as part of a documentary titled ‘Logan Paul: Bad Influence?’ by filmmaker Matt Shea.
After refusing to share his side of the story for the last several months, Paul finally gave the BBC the go-ahead to fly out to Puerto Rico for a sit-down interview. When the crew arrived, they were met by a Logan Paul lookalike who turned up in the WWE Superstar’s place. Shortly after, a crowd shouting abuse about the BBC arrived, including a man with a megaphone who led chants of “BBC is vile. They hire pedophiles.”
The BBC also received a letter from Paul’s lawyers advising them that publishing their findings could bring about potential consequences for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
“Rather than defend himself about the allegations we’ve been investigating, Logan decided to troll us,” Shea says in a recently released clip from the documentary.
Logan Paul’s cryptocurrency woes are far from over
In 2021, Paul announced CryptoZoo — a cryptocurrency made up of eggs they could purchase in a digital game. Players were then supposed to be able to hatch those eggs, raising animals that would act as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Those animals could be bred to create hybrid creatures, offering holders an opportunity to sell off their more unique animals for crypto.
Paul made big promises and hyped it on his various social media channels. As it turns out, the game didn’t even exist.
“Defendants promoted CryptoZoo’s products using Mr. Paul’s online platforms to consumers unfamiliar with digital currency products, leading to tens of thousands of people purchasing said products,” a class-action lawsuit filing from February 2023 read. “Unbeknownst to the customers, the game did not work or never existed, and the Defendants manipulated the digital currency market for Zoo Tokens to their advantage.”
After finishing the sale of all the CryptoZoo NFTs, the defendants and others “transferred millions of dollars’ worth of purchasers’ cryptocurrency to, among other places, wallets controlled by Defendants,” according to the filing (h/t Variety).
