YouTuber and crypto journalist Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, has addressed the lawsuit filed against him by social media influencer Logan Paul, calling it "groundless, meritless, and frivolous."
Paul filed a defamation lawsuit against Coffeezilla on June 27, alleging that his videos about Paul's non-fungible token (NFT) project, CryptoZoo, included false accusations of fraud.
In a video released on August 5, Coffeezilla clarified that the videos in question are not related to his initial investigation into CryptoZoo. Instead, the suit targets later videos and an X post where he advocated for user refunds.
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Earlier this year, on January 4, Paul announced a "buy back" program funded with $2.3 million of his own money, promising to repurchase CryptoZoo NFTs at their original price. However, investors who wanted to participate in this program had to agree to waive any current or future legal claims against Paul and associated personnel.
Coffeezilla criticized this approach, arguing it only partially addresses investor losses. He explained:
There are two parts of CryptoZoo: the NFTs and the Zoo tokens. Logan chose only to refund the NFTs, which is a minority of the losses <...>. It is disappointing for someone as rich as Logan to not make things fully right and instead only pay back a small part of the losses while fighting the rest of the victims in court.
For Paul's claims to hold up in court, he must demonstrate financial loss or reputational damage directly caused by Coffeezilla's statements. Yet, Coffeezilla pointed out that Paul had already been accused of pump-and-dump schemes before his videos were released.
Coffeezilla also highlighted that the timing of the lawsuit suggests its true aim is to silence him. Just 21 hours before he was sued, Coffeezilla texted Paul with questions about another crypto project he co-founded, Liquid Marketplace, which the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has recently accused of being a "multi-layered fraud."
In his video, Coffeezilla concluded:
This defamation lawsuit feels frivolous even on the surface. But if you dig deeper, there's an even more compelling story which I personally believe, where the goal is to crush new investigations while taking revenge on old ones.
Thus, it seems as though Logan Paul's lawsuit against Coffeezilla is not just about defamation but a strategic move to suppress future investigations.
Paul told his side of the story regarding CryptoZoo in a YouTube documentary released on March 28, where he said that the project failed due to his inexperience rather than malicious intent.
