Logan Paul and Coffeezilla Showdown in CryptoZoo Rug Pull Drama
Hello,
In today’s dispatch we have:
Logan Paul and Coffeezilla Showdown
Shopify businesses can now sell NFTs through their stores.
Fanatics sells its 60% stake in sports NFT firm Candy Digital
Looks like Logan Paul (aka the face of CryptoZoo) and Coffeezilla (the internet detective) are in a bit of a tiff over whether or not Paul's crypto project is a "rug pull".
It's like a good old-fashioned showdown in the Wild West of the internet!
CryptoZoo is an NFT game that allows "ZooKeepers" to purchase NFT eggs with the game's native token, ZOO. These eggs would then hatch into animals that could be bred to produce hybrids.
The core team included controversial names: Jeff Levin, Paul's manager, Jake the Crypto King, who served as the advisor, Eddie Ibanez and Zach Kelling.
The game, which was announced in 2021, was billed as a "really fun game that makes you money." But none of that is happening and we're now in 2023.
So there have long been allegations of rug-pulling. And Paul's claims that a developer held the gaming code hostage for a $1 million ransom seemed unreal.
That's why Coffeezilla decided to investigate and add a few things:
The developer held the code hostage as Logan Paul owed the team payment for their work.
Crypto King was responsible for rug-pulling the project and allegedly profiting $6 million.
CryptoZoo blog has not published any new content since April 20.
Paul said the art for the game would be "handmade" by 10 different artists over six months. - but it was all Photoshop stock images!
In Paul's response to all of this, he blamed the other partners, threatened to sue Coffeezilla, and... that's it. Nothing much.
While all of this was going on, the founder of Ethereum NFT collection Mutant Ape Planet, 24-year-old Aurelien Michel, got nabbed by the feds at JFK airport in New York City for allegedly pulling a similar rug-pull and was charged with wire fraud.
Last year was known for so many things, but also it was the year of scams and rug-pulls.
The blockchain risk monitoring firm Solidus Labs last month has released the 2022 Rug Pull report, which revealed:
There were over 117,000 scam tokens from January 1 to December 1, 2022 - 41% increase over the full 2021.
An average of 350 crypto scam tokens were developed per day.
BNB Chain witnessed the most number of scam tokens - 12% of BNB's native BEP-20 tokens.
Ethereum Stood second, with 8% of its native ERC-20 tokens being forged.
$3.3 million Squid Game token scam was the biggest honeypot scam - the kind of rug pull where investors can BUY the token but can't SELL it.
Shopify merchants can now sell NFTs through their online stores.
Shopify, the e-commerce platform that allows merchants to create online stores and sell their products, has recently announced a new feature for its merchants: the ability to design, mint, and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Avalanche blockchain through Venly Shopify NFT app
This is a strong move for Shopify and the NFT space, as it allows millions of creators and small businesses to get involved in the NFT market.
The integration with the Avalanche blockchain allows Shopify merchants to easily create and sell NFTs without worrying about technical complexities.
Some potential uses for NFTs on Shopify could include selling limited edition products with unique serial numbers or even creating virtual experiences or events that can be represented as NFTs.
This new feature enables merchants to get in on the NFT craze and offer their customers a new way to engage with their brand. It will be interesting to see how merchants utilize this new feature and what creative uses for NFTs emerge.
Fanatics sells its 60% stake in sports NFT firm Candy Digital
The online retailer of licensed sports merchandise and apparel store, Fanatics, recently announced that it had sold a majority stake in its non-fungible token (NFT) shop Candy Digital to a group led by Galaxy Digital Ventures and ConsenSys Mesh.
Candy Digital was founded by Galaxy Digital, entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, and Fanatics in the middle of 2021 during rapid growth in the sports NFT sector. Candy Digital raised $100 million in a Series A fundraising round in October 2021, valued at $1.5 billion.
It worked on NFT initiatives for prominent brands like Major League Baseball, NASCAR, WWE, and Netflix. It is also Major League Baseball's official NFT ecosystem, where fans and collectors can buy, trade, and share legally licenced player NFTs.
The divestment by Fanatics comes during a lengthy decline in digital assets, which has seen NFT trading volumes fall alongside cryptocurrency values. It had already laid off a huge number of its staff at the end of last year.