When the NFT craze hit its peak in 2021, Logan Paul was one of the earliest celebrities to jump headlong into the scene. The YouTuber and boxer not only invested in a range of blue-chip NFTs but went on to release his own NFT collection and a marketplace. Unfortunately, his NFT portfolio took a hit, as was the case with many celebrities and their NFT investments.
#95 BREAKING POINT from the 99 Originals collection. Credit: Logan Paul
To give one example, the ‘Bumblebee’ 0n1Force NFT Paul bought for a whopping $623,000 in 2021 was reportedly worth only $10 late last month. At the time of writing, however, the NFT was worth around $10,000, according to DappRadar estimations. To be sure, several other celebrities, including Steve Aoki, saw their portfolio values plummet. The primary reason for this fall is the crypto winter, which dragged the NFT market with it.
In the meantime, what happened to Logan Paul’s NFT collection and his marketplace? How much is his NFT portfolio worth now? We’ll answer all these questions and more in this article.
First and foremost, Logan Paul is an avid Pokémon card collector—a habit he began in August 2020, thanks to Gary Vaynerchuk. Later, it was Gary again who prompted him to get into the NFT space.
In December 2021, Logan Paul revealed that he spent a whopping $2.645 million in 2021 on 139 NFTs from 16 collections. One of the first NFTs he bought was from the World of Women NFT collection. While one of them cost him around $160,000, another was worth about $170,000. What’s more, in August last year, he also spent $155,000 on two rock NFTs.
Amid this, starting his own NFT collection was the natural next step for the YouTuber—enter CryptoZoo.
The value of Paul’s ‘Bumblebee’ NFT fell to almost nothing.
As a Pokémon fan, Logan Paul had long wanted to see a “Pokémon fusion game” in action. This wish, combined with his interest in NFTs, led to the founding of CryptoZoo. Essentially, this is a blockchain game where players could collect, breed, and sell NFT eggs.
While the initial collection dropped (and instantly sold out) on September 3, 2021, his fans were disappointed. Transactions failed, many lost hefty sums in gas fees, and the mint was rife with bots.
Well, this was just the beginning. Soon after launch, YouTube journalist, Stephen ‘Coffeezilla‘ Findeisen revealed that the artwork for the animals in the game consisted of edited Photoshop stock images. Further, some investors lost seven-figure sums. Unfortunately for them, CryptoZoo did not reimburse their losses. Long story short, the project failed, with many, including NFT influencer, ZachXBT calling it a rug pull.
Worse still, Logan Paul released a YouTube video (now deleted), where he called Coffeezilla a “lopsided journalist with an agenda.” In the seven-minute video titled, “My Response To Coffeezilla’s Scam Allegations”, Logan called the allegations “deeply unethical, dangerously misleading, and illegal.”
He further said, “You have used my name for views and money.” Coffeezilla has an “addiction to clicks”—Logan added—”that “clouds his judgment”. What’s more, he even threatened to file a lawsuit against the journalist. “I suggest you use the money you got from pumping your Patreon to hire a good lawyer. You’re going to need it.”
In response to the actual allegations, Logan simply blamed all the mishaps on “bad actors” his team “unknowingly” hired for the project.
Logan Paul released a video to hit back at Coffeezilla. Credit: Screengrab from Logan’s video
After Logan Paul released the video, his fans were quick to point out the obvious: Logan did not take any accountability for hiring criminals for CryptoZoo and failed to apologise to the victims. However, on January 7, Coffeezilla tweeted to say that Logan Paul called him to apologise, and said he’d be taking down his video responses. Besides, he also said he would drop the “lawsuit threats” against him.
Coffeezilla also shared Logan’s Discord response (seemingly to the CryptoZoo community). Logan wrote that his response to Coffeezilla was was “rash and misaligned with the true issue at hand, so I called him today and apologised….I will be taking accountability, apologizing, and coming forward with a plan in the near future.”
Finally, the team will rebuild the CryptoZoo NFT game to develop a fully functional blockchain game that the NFT holders can play. Logan also issued another apology to Coffeezilla.
Notably, some perks are NFT-specific. For instance, the holder of NFT #8 gets a CryptoPunk #6762 necklace after holding it for 99 consecutive days. On the other hand, #16 holder can pick the colour of the boxer’s Robe and Shorts for the next fight. They can even walk with Paul to his next fight!
While 49% of the sales proceeds went to Paul, 50% was sent to the treasury for holders to spend as they please. To be sure, the DAO was set up to buy digital assets, fund members’ creative projects, provide access to events, and support independent artists, to name a few. The last 1% of funds was allocated to Logan Paul’s Pokémon NFT holders.
The first phase of the project ended on September 21, with Logan promising to deploy the funds for various charities. To be sure, that was the last update from Originals’ official Twitter account. So, how is the collection performing now? According to OpenSea analytics, the collection’s floor fell in September, going down as low as 15.29 ETH on October 17. However, there was a sudden spike, followed by a steep fall the following week, with the floor remaining 32 ETH at the time of writing.
As of now, we are unsure if Paul delivered on his many promises. It is also uncertain how the project will function in the coming weeks and months. However, one thing is for certain—99 Originals did extremely well under the circumstances. Paul seemingly made the right decision by dropping a limited collection that his fans loved. But how it performs in the future remains to be seen.
Logan Paul turned an extremely rare Pokémon card into an NFT.
Around the same time Logan Paul dropped 99 Originals, he also announced his new marketplace for fractionalized NFT art: Liquid Marketplace. The idea is to fractionalise asset ownership so that anyone could co-own exclusive physical and digital collectibles. On the platform, anyone can buy, sell, and trade high-value digital collectibles.
So, how exactly does the platform work? Firstly, it authenticates and approves collectibles on the platform. It then stores the assets in a secure, physical vault. Finally, the tokens linked to the assets are listed for sale on Liquid for $0.10 USD per token. Once the assets are sold out, the platform moves them to the ‘marketplace’ where users can buy, sell, and trade the tokens.
A look at Logan Paul’s NFT portfolio. Credit: DappRadar
