In case you forgot, controversial YouTuber Logan Paulpromised to pay back millions of dollarsto folks who fell victim to his NFT âgame,â CryptoZoo. The gameâa sort ofPokĂŠmon-like where you collect, sell, and trade exotic animals on the blockchainânever really existed, though, which left the embattled content creator witha fat class-action lawsuiton his desk. Now, after swearing refunds were coming, Paul has delivered, although if you take his money, you arenât allowed to sue him.
Let me get you up to speed real quick. In 2021, Paul attempted to launch CryptoZoo, a âplay-to-earnâ NFT game the YouTuber described as âreally fun.â Using the in-game currency of zoo coins, youâd buy egg NFTs that would hatch into animals, which youâd then breed to make rare hybrids that yielded more zoo coins the rarer they were. Once you cashed the zoo coins out, the money would start rolling into your crypto wallet. Sounds like a lowkey way to make some passive income by doing nothing.
Unfortunately, none of this happened. In fact, as YouTube investigator Stephen âCoffeezillaâ Findeisen uncovered ina three-part series, not only was the game never playable, but folks lost a lot of money on something that didnât exist because, as Paul put it, âcon menâ weaseled their way into and disrupted the projectâs viability. This whole fiasco prompted Paul to try to right the wrong by enactinga three-step planthat would see him âfinish and deliverâ CryptoZoo while putting up $1.3 million for folks who wanted to wash their hands of the whole thing.
Fast-forward a few years and Paul is now offering to buy back CryptoZoo NFTs, essentially refunding people who lost hundredsâif not thousandsâof dollars. Ina January 4 post on X/Twitter, Paul announced that the buy-back program, which he said heâs âpersonally committingâ $2.3 million toward, will be offered through February 8. You just need tosubmit a claim onlineto see if youâre eligible.
âAs I said a year ago, CryptoZoo was derailed by bad actors. Bad actors who DID steal money and who betrayed our team while internally sabotaging the game,â Paul said in part of the X/Twitter post. âThis has now been confirmed by an extensive investigation that has involved a forensic analysis of blockchain activity and the review of thousands of communications. [âŚ] This buy-back is a way for me to make whole those who intended to play CryptoZoo. The buy-back is not intended to compensate those who gambled on the crypto market and lost.â
Thatâs great. We love a refund. However, clicking through to the terms and conditions of the submission form reveals the catch. If you accept the agreement, then you are âwaiving any actual or anticipated claims against Paul.â This means that if youâre eligible to participate in the buy-back program, youâre contractually swearing that you wonât participate in the class action suit or take any legal action against the YouTuber or anyone associated with him and CryptoZoo for any reasonâmonetary or otherwise.
In X/Twitter DMs withKotaku, Richard Hoeg, a lawyer who specializes in digital and video game law, said what Paul is doing is a pretty common occurrence in court.
âWell, that would effectively be a settlement agreement,â Hoeg said. âContractually, the way a settlement works is that one side agrees to pay money and the other agrees that all their claims are extinguished by the payment and they promise not to sue over such extinguished claims.â
Kotakureached out to Paul for comment.
For his part, Paul openly admitted inthe January 4 X/Twitter postthat CryptoZoo âwill not be releasedâ because there are âtoo many regulatory hurdles that would need to be cleared,â which he said would ultimately delay the buy-back program. He also confirmed that heâsfiled a counter lawsuit in Texasagainst the âbad actorsâ as a means to hold them accountable for their shit, though Paul didnât name names. This is still all against the backdrop of the class-action lawsuit he currently faces.
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