Logan Paul's "99 Originals" NFT Collection

About

99 Originals is an NFT project by Logan Paul where a new polaroid photograph is put up for auction as an NFT over the course of 99 days on Originals.com, each photograph taken by Paul over the course of 99 consecutive days. The project was announced in April 2022 and launched in May. It received mixed reactions, some worried the project was a scam.

History

On April 12th, 2022, Logan Paul uploaded a video to YouTube^[1] announcing the "99 Originals" project (shown below). In the video, Paul describes it as an artistic project and shows footage of him taking several of the photos, suggesting he wants each photo to be as "crazy" as possible. The video gained over 1.9 million views in a month and teases a launch date of April 18th, however, that date was seemingly pushed back. The Twitter^[2] account @OriginalsDAO was launched to promote the collection along with the website originals.com,^[3] where the project is described in further detail and each NFT is accessible. On the "My Journey" page of the site, Paul describes the photographs as capturing "the most significant moments" of his life.

On August 21, 2021, I was thrust into a creative maelstrom that tied together every piece of my life in the past, present, and future. The following 99 days would cultivate the most transformative journey of my life…

I pushed myself to the furthest mental and physical depths while trekking 84,029 miles around the globe with a Polaroid camera.

During that time, I broke bones, witnessed miracles, nearly severed my family, experienced substance addiction, traveled with the world’s wealthiest, fell in love (more than once), lived dangerously in the present, and concluded with 99 of the most significant moments of my life captured on tangible film.

This is the story of 99 Originals.

On May 9th, the first polaroid went up for auction on OpenSea^[4] (shown below). The photograph shows artist Beeple standing in front of his piece "HUMAN_ONE." All proceeds from the NFT auction go towards Ukraine War relief effort. The auction lasted 24 hours and the polaroid received a maximum bid of up to 25 Ethereum, worth roughly $59,000 USD at the time.^[6] That day, Paul made a post to Twitter^[7] sharing his "honest thoughts" about the first day of the project, writing that they launched during a "horrific bear market."

On May 10th the second NFT was posted to originals.com, a photograph of an ape wearing a shirt, captain's hat and 3D glasses titled "42 BORED APE," a reference to Bored Ape Yacht Club (shown below). The highest bid after three hours at auction was 13.5 ETH, roughly $32,000 USD.

Paul promoted the NFT on Twitter^[5] that day, sharing a video of him setting up the shot, gaining over 2,200 likes in under a day (shown below).

Online Presence

Criticism

Logan Paul has been criticized in the past for promoting crypto and NFT scams. In July 2021 he was accused of promoting and having a part in the creation of a cryptocurrency called "Dink Doink," which was accused of being a pump and dump scheme.^[8] That September, he was criticized for his involvement in the "Crypto Zoo" NFT project, with many seeing the artwork as lazy, consisting largely of photoshopped stock photos. Critics doubted that the NFTs held any resale value, including YouTuber Coffezilla, whose video on the topic gained over 588,000 views in eight months (shown below).

Some people speculated that "99 Originals" might be a scam, often using his past history with crypto and NFT scams as evidence. On April 20th, Recent Higlights^[9] published an article suggesting people don't invest in the NFT project unless they have millions of dollars to throw around. On April 21st, the H3 Podcast host Ethan Klein predicted that the project would be a scam in a clip from the podcast, garnering over 43,000 views in a month (shown below).

Search Interest

External References