Degen Zoo, an NFT game inspired by YouTuber Logan Paul\u2019s controversial Crypto Zoo concept, has seen more than 115,000 wallets register to join the game, with pledges of over $700 million. DAO Maker founder Christoph Zaknun took on the challenge of building his variant of the shelved zoo-themed game in just 30 days.<\/p>\n
In August 2021, Logan Paul announced a project called Crypto Zoo, which involved buying nonfungible token eggs that would supposedly hatch into animals, allowing owners to earn passive income through zoo tokens. The project reportedly raised over $3 million in NFT sales and tens of millions in zoo tokens. However, the project failed to deliver as promised, leaving many participants feeling that they had been rug pulled by the influencer.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Paul\u2019s Crypto Zoo game, which critics have called a \u201cscam,” Christoph Zaknun\u2019s “Degen Zoo\u201d game simulates the impact of capitalism on animal extinction, featuring a deflationary token and an NFT collection of 120 endangered species. Players are motivated to \u201ckill” their NFT, driving the collection to extinction and raising awareness of the devastating effects of human greed on wildlife. Zaknun has pledged to donate all profits from Degen Zoo to charity.<\/p>\n
Zaknun’s decision to broadcast daily updates of his progress has garnered interest from over 250,000 people, with more than 30,000 testnet transactions initiated by 3,000 players within days of the first testnet release.<\/p>\n
Logan Paul reportedly released a video stating that Christoph Zaknun had no right to dictate the required development timeline, following criticisms that\u00a0Paul had done nothing for a year after raising funds for his own Crypto Zoo project.<\/p>\n
Two months ago, self-proclaimed \u201cinternet detective exposing scams\u201d Coffeezilla published a series of expos\u00e9s investigating and exposing Logan Paul\u2019s NFT project that never was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/386p68_lDHA<\/p>\n
In the YouTube videos, investors in the game claimed to have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. After Coffeezilla\u2019s video was released, Logan Paul threatened to sue Coffeezilla for defamation after he accused Paul\u2019s CryptoZoo nonfungible token\u00a0 project of being a \u201cscam.\u201d However, shortly after, Paul deleted his response video aimed at Coffeezilla,\u00a0apologized and promised to drop his threats of filing a defamation lawsuit over the videos, saying:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was rash and misaligned with the trust issue at hand, so I called him today and apologized.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n