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When the NFT craze hit its peak last year, 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.
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.
“I spent half a million dollars on CryptoPunks because Gary Vee called me and told me that it would be the next Facebook,” Paul told Forbes in a 2021 interview.
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.
To be sure, Paul’s initial NFT investments came at a time some of these assets were selling for millions of dollars, if not more. In fact, according to reports, overall NFT sales amounted to $25 billion in 2021. In short, Paul was doing what every NFT enthusiast with money was doing: spend hundreds of thousands on seemingly positive NFTs hoping for substantial returns.
Amid this, starting his own NFT collection was the natural next step for the YouTuber—enter CryptoZoo.
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, NFT detective Coffeezilla revealed that the artwork for the animals in the game was edited Photoshop stock images. Further, some of the investors lost seven-figure sums and were not reimbursed. Long story short, the project failed, with many, including NFT influencer, ZachXBT calling it a rug pull.
Early this year, however, Paul claimed in an interview that he was new to the space and got “involved with the wrong people who made some errors and blunders.” Apparently, the project was set to move forwards with a “great team”, while Paul focused on his new project—99 Originals.
Cut to April 2022, Logan Paul launched 99 Originals, a new NFT collection and DAO. In a nutshell, the collection features 99 photos he took over 99 days through a Polaroid while travelling 84,029 miles across the globe. In short, the exclusive collection includes just 99 one-of-one NFTs. For this reason, each NFT holder gets to enjoy a range of benefits, including an original, real-life copy of the polaroid. They also get access to the 99 Originals DAO and voting rights.
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!
Paul auctioned one NFT daily on Originals, with each auction running for 24 hours. Despite Paul’s previous history with NFTs and the crypto market crash, his 99 Originals did surprisingly well. For example, #14 42 Bored Ape fetched around $104,000 at the time. #1, meanwhile, sold for about $58,000. Late in May, #76 Life and Death went for $60,000.
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.
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.
Some of the top collectibles trading on the platform include CryptoPunks, rare Pokémon trading cards, and Pokémon Box. In fact, in July, Paul turned the world’s most expensive Pokémon card into an NFT and tokenised it on the Liquid marketplace. Reportedly, he paid around $5.3 million for the PSA 10 card.
While Logan Paul’s 99 Originals and Liquid marketplace is braving the storm, the value of his NFT portfolio has significantly fallen. While he spent over $2.5 million on NFTs last year, today, his NFT portfolio is only worth a little over $1 million. In fact, in May, Paul admitted he lost $500,000 in the crypto crash. He was also warned by the consumer watchdog group, Truth in Advertising, for shilling NFTs.
Today, in Paul’s wallet, the top three most expensive NFTs are all CryptoPunks. Their current market prices range from $443,000 to $133,000, at the time of writing. Some of the other top NFT collections in his portfolio include 99 Originals, VeeFriends, Otherdeeds, and Tom Sachs Rocket Factory.
Having said that, it’s important to note that DappRadar has a controversial history of overvaluing NFTs. As there’s currently no standard to value NFTs, it’s difficult to ascertain what exactly Logan Paul’s NFT portfolio is worth today. On the other hand, early this month, Nansen estimated the wallet’s value to be about $515,000.
All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
Reethu Ravi is a journalist based in India, covering environment, sustainability, tech and innovation. When not found between the pages of a book, she can be seen catching up on the latest developments in the tech world. A naval architect-turned journalist, she loves bringing stories of change and innovation to the limelight.
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