Youtuber and boxer Logan Paul sues influencer for $75,000 for defamation over failed Crypto game accusations
Boxer and Youtuber Logan Paul has filed a defamation lawsuit against fellow Youtube star Stephen Findeisen, who is known as “Coffeezilla”, alleging that he purposefully spread lies about him to besmirch his reputation.
The lawsuit, which was filed yesterday (June 27) in a San Antonio, Texas District Court, is a result of a series of videos Findeisen made about Paul’s failed CryptoZoo non-fungible token (NFT) project in 2022.
Documents allege that Findeisen “maliciously and repeatedly published false statements accusing Paul of operating a scam in connection with a troubled blockchain project called CryptoZoo.” Paul is seeking more than $75,000 (around £60,000) in damages because of the harm he said Findeisen caused to his reputation through the “intentional spread of defamatory falsehoods”, as stated in the court filing.
Launched in 2021, CryptoZoo was a game where players were encouraged to buy “eggs,” which were NFTs, using the platform’s ZOO token. It was said that these eggs would “hatch” into animals that could be bred to create hybrid creatures, which players could then trade and earn more ZOO tokens based on their rarity - but this didn’t actually happen. Despite the fact there was much hype around the game, owing to Paul’s name, the project didn’t gain much interest and this resulted in the price of ZOO tokens collapsing.
Paul’s problem with Findeisen first arose in late 2022, when Coffeezilla released three YouTube videos labeling CryptoZoo as “Logan Paul’s biggest scam.” In the videos, he accused Paul of defrauding his fans by withholding the funds of NFT holders and keeping it for himself, without delivering the promised project. However, Paul claims that Findeisen intentionally didn’t include information which showed he was committed to CryptoZoo’s success.
The filing reads: “Findeisen knew full well that Paul had never set out to scam anybody, but to the contrary had always intended to build a legitimate blockchain-based game.” It also states that Paul says he was deceived by several trusted advisers who turned out to be conmen, and this is why the game failed. The documents name two advisors that Paul says mislead him and caused the problems with CryptoZoo.
Findeisen has more than three million subscribers on Youtube. On his channel, he wrote: “I uncover scams, fraudsters and fake gurus that are preying on desperate people with deceptive advertising.” The videos that he posted about CryptoZoo are still live on his channel at the time of writing (on the morning of Friday June 28).
Paul had initially considered legal action against Findeisen in 2022, when the videos were first published, but instead decided to focus on implementing a $1.5 million (around 1,187,000) in an attempt to recover CryptoZoo. His recovery plan did not work, however. But, the lawsuit says he did not earn any money at all from the project and actually lost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The lawsuit states that Paul holds Findeisen accountable for the “immense harm that he has caused to Paul’s reputation.” He is accused of “intentional and reckless dissemination of defamatory falsehoods.” Paul is seeking damages of more than $75,000 (£60,000), along with interest, lawyer fees, and additional damages and relief to be determined by the court.