Published
1 year ago on
March 10, 2023
Table of Contents
CryptoZoo, Logan Paul’s proposed online game project, was recently at the center of a class-action lawsuit after the YouTuber apologised to fans who lost money investing in the venture.
Crypto scam investigator Stephen Findeisen, aka Coffeezilla, has now appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast claiming Paul is yet to refund buyers of CryptoZoo NFTs despite a promise to do so earlier this year.
While investors wait hopefully for Paul to make them whole, a new project has sprung up to fulfil the original CryptoZoo vision – and it’s quickly gained a huge amount of traction. Dubbed Degen Zoo, this “Crypto Zoo redemption project” is the brainchild of Chris Zaknun, the CEO of the $200 million DAO Maker launchpad, who claims to have built it in just 30 days.
From CryptoZoo to Degen Zoo
Announcing the project back in January, Zaknun said profits would be used to cover the legal expenses of Coffeezilla, whom Paul had threatened with a defamation lawsuit, as well as victims of the scam.
Two months on and Degen Zoo is truly motoring: the project is closing in on 250,000 Twitter followers and the first testnet version of the game was released just hours before its deadline on the 30th day of the challenge. The rapid build has been painstakingly documented on the official website, with the team revealing the venture “was supposed to be a joke project to show how full of sh*t Logan Paul is, but it became so much more.”
Days after the release, the testnet saw over 3,000 active players make 30,000 transactions, marking Degen Zoo as a project to rival serious NFT and GameFi protocols. A month-long period of audits and bug-hunting followed as the community kept growing, with over 50 NFT communities onboarded.
On March 6, it was announced that over 115,000 wallets had joined Degen Zoo’s Initial DEX Offering (IDO), with 54k holding between $500 and $2,000, 2k holding between $50k and $250k, and over 50 holding $1m or more. Within two days of the announcement video being posted, it had been viewed over 150,000 times.
Although the initial plan had been to funnel profits to Coffeezilla and CryptoZoo victims, that appears to have changed: the Degen Zoo Twitter bio states that all profits will go to endangered animal charities. In any case, Paul appears to have rowed back on his threat to slap Coffeezilla with a defamation suit.
An NFT Game with a Serious Message
So, what is Degen Zoo exactly? In a nutshell, it’s an NFT game that incentivizes players to “kill” their animal and push the whole endangered-species collection to extinction. But why? To simulate capitalism’s devastating impact on wildlife, of course.
Degen Zoo features a deflationary token ($DZOO) which is used in the game to obtain animal eggs and hatch them. Per the whitepaper, the overall objective is to acquire animal eggs, hatch them, oversee the evolution of your animal, and finally kill it to obtain income. Burning NFTs also raises money to protect real endangered species in the wild.
Degen Zoo has clearly nailed its narrative, and a project that began as a two-fingered riposte against Jake Paul and other get-rich-quick NFT charlatans has transformed into a genuine viral hit. “Logan Paul and other influencers never has [sic] and never will habe [sic] the qualifications to build tokens,” reads a recent tweet on Degen Zoo’s Twitter. “As a community it’s our responsibility to not enable such people again.”
It appears to be a responsibility the crypto community is taking seriously.
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