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Coffeezilla

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Coffeezilla is a YouTuber who exposes scams. He is known for his work on Tether, SafeMoon, and several of Logan Paul's projects, including Dink Doink and CryptoZoo. He is also a Cyberpunk detective who gets many of his leads from a robot bartender.

His channel can be found here.


This show provides examples of:

  • Absence of Evidence: This is, in Coffee's opinion, the most damning proof that Valve Corporation is not only aware of how widespread gambling is in the Counter-Strike community, but also implicitly endorsing it. When Valve was directly asked if they have information regarding how gambling sites impact Counter-Strike player numbers, Valve's answer was that they have "no data" pertaining to the subject. Considering their immense userbase and extensive analyses of it through Steam, the only ways for Valve to claim to have "no data" on something would be either that they're just lying (in which case Valve is deliberately obfuscating how much they benefit from these gambling sites), or that they willingly refuse to measure the amount of gambling that goes on (in which case they're trying to have Plausible Deniability about any involvement).
  • Audience Surrogate: When he's not doing the explaining (as he did regarding liquid vs. illiquid assets in SBF's trial), Maxwell serves as a way for Coffee to speak on the various scams he's uncovering for the audience's benefit in a manner that feeds into a narrative.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Coffee's most stylized videos often end in a similar fashion — Coffee and Maxwell successfully expose the perpetrators they're after, and detail every crime they've committed in the name of defrauding people of their money. But in the end, that's all they can do. Coffee and Maxwell can't actually do anything to help the victims of these scams (legally speaking), because it's ultimately up to law enforcement to decide whether or not the perpetrators will be going to jail. Even if law enforcement gets involved, victims can expect to receive pennies on the dollar, if that; most of the victims of such scammers will likely never receive true justice. And there's inevitably another scam right around the corner.
  • Blatant Lies: While many scammers try to come up with some kind of logical explanation or reason behind their actions when Coffee inevitably confronts them, Ted Safranko of Traders Domain doesn't even do that; all he does is just deny absolutely everything that Coffee says, even when it's backed up with indisputible proof like video evidence or Ted's own signature. Coffee then details that this strategy of simply lying about everything worked for him in the past, as he somehow managed to successfully lie to the Canadian government in two different investigations against him and escape with no consequences either time.
  • Chroma Key: The ten-million-dollar studio, his flying car, Maxwell's bar Ballmer's Peak, the Internet Archive, SBF's penthouse.
  • Content Warning: His video on Ryan Piasente starts as a typical financial scheme, but halfway through it segues to stories of sexual abuse allegations; before it does, Coffee switches from the stylized storytelling in the bar to the Ten Million Dollar Studio to warn the viewers that the accusations are disturbing and not for the faint of heart. To go even further, the full stories are censored, with a message saying that finding and reading the full stories is up to the viewers' discretion, and the stories are told with the absolute bare minimum amount of detail necessary to establish a case.
  • Cool Car: Starting with his Tether videos, he drives a flying Lamborghini.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: In his earlier appearances, Maxwell is more focused on looking out for Coffee's well being and preventing him from getting too deep into the scams he's researching. Later on, Maxwell's defining characteristic would be his desperation to be Coffee's sidekick in the investigations and actively encouraging to continue when Coffee thinks all hope is lost.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • Coffee is fiercely dedicated to journalistic integrity, no matter what. He always reaches out to the subject of his videos for comment, and includes their responses even if he believes they're lying. He always honors requests to remain off-the-record or anonymous, even if it hurts his case. He generally leaves people unnamed if they don't add anything to his case to protect their identity, such as an influencer who turned down an offer to be an ambassador for SaveTheKids — Coffee leaves this influencer unnamed to avoid dragging them into the mess and because knowing their identity wouldn't add anything to the story.
    • Maxwell and Coffee expose a lot of crypto scammers who stole billions of dollars and have often expressed hatred for the perpetrators. But Ted Safranko, the owner of Traders Domain, disturbs them on a personal level. Coffee describes even talking to him as "frightening" and several of the victim interviews genuinely refer to him as a sociopath, a word he never even used when referring to Sam Bankman-Fried.
      Coffee: It's like talking to a shell of a human being.
    • His video on Ryan Piasente not only warns the viewers that dark content related to sexual assault is coming, but it censors the full allegations so as to avoid risking triggering any viewers. While he does include small quotes, none include any details (beyond the recurring detail of a shower because it's important to the case), and a message on the screen says that looking up the full stories is up to the viewer but warns that they are very disturbing allegations.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Maxwell is generally the reason that Coffee is able to get anything done, often directing him towards the most productive leads, hammering in the need for more evidence when he's ready to call it a day, reminding him to focus on the victims and not just the technical jargon, and keeping him motivated when he's about to throw in the towel.
  • Hypocrite: In his interview with Ted Safranko, Coffee and Maxwell call out that Ted keeps insisting his disgust with America's disregard for "family values", even though Ted's scheme destroyed several families' livelihoods and his only defense is to blame them for financial choices he tricked them into making.
  • Indulgent Fantasy Segue: In "Insane Creator Scam", the story starts with Coffee taking a call from the roof of a building like a superhero, whereupon Maxwell calls him on it, and it turns out he was actually playing Batman: Arkham City.
    Okay, so maybe I exaggerated the setting, a bit, but I did get a call.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: When Coffee gets too stressed or burned out from an investigation, he goes to Maxwell's bar and gets plastered.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • Whether he's playing into a narrative or not, Coffee generally takes on all of his topics with an air of confidence and assurance even when the subjects of the video are threatening him (legally or otherwise), which makes his debrief on the phone call he had with Ted Safranko stand out; in comparison to his usual demeanor, Coffee outright admits to being freightened by the conversation he had with Ted and his callous disregard for all of the harm he caused.
    • The video on Revolt the merch company and its owner Ryan Piasente is drastically different from his other videos; most notably, he never makes a single joke or even smiles throughout the video, and he outright says that the investigation was emotionally exhausting. Given that Ryan's video is far from the typical financial scam he covers - though he did scam people out of money, half of the video is dedicated to sexual assault allegations - it makes sense that the tone of the video is different from the get-go.
  • Personal Dictionary: Many scammers attempt this under interrogation; for example, Bryan King Legend of Safuu attempts to wriggle out of stealing the Fire Pit moneynote  by pretending to not understand the difference between possession and ownership and saying that the accusation that he secretly had the ability to spend the funds was an admission that he had the right to take them; likewise, many scammers, most notably Ted Safranko, have expansive definitions of free will that imply that their victims had it coming, and many victims (eg, Scott Melker in "Billion Dollar Bankruptcy Gets WORSE") have insisted that they don't meet the definition of victims.
  • Pet the Dog: During his investigation into SaveTheKids, Coffee goes out of his way to exonerate Teeqo, one of the influencers/ambassadors of the project who had been suspended from FaZe Clan for his participation in the coin, by revealing that he put over $40,000 into the project and then never sold a single token. This investigation led to Teeqo getting reinstated by the group.
    Coffee: In all of this, Teeqo seems to be the only one who actually wanted to help save any kids.
  • Refuge in Audacity: In his videos on Traders Domain, Maxwell is confused why Ted Safranko, the owner and trader of the site, only continues to blatantly lie about anything that Coffee says or asks even when Coffee has indisputible proof of his claims. Coffee then details that this strategy worked in the past; the Ontario Security Commission previously investigated Traders Domain for potential fraud, and their solution was to simply lie about everything until the government left them alonenote . This worked not once, but twice.
  • Running Gag: Particularly ridiculous or brazen schemes are described as "flying Lamborghini-level".
    • Both him and his fans continuously make fun of Logan Paul apparently believing everything that is shown inside Coffee videos is real, even if in reality it's all Special Effects.
  • Screw Your Ultimatum!: Quite often, Coffee will mention that he's been threatened by the subjects of his videos for exposing what their doing. Most of the threats are of the legal variety, i.e. someone threatening to sue him and/or have him arrested. But there have also been threats of physical harm to him as well, and he mentions that he's felt genuinely frightened of a few of the subjects of his investigations such as Ted Safranko. Coffee soldiers on all the same, usually with the implication that he knows such threats are empty, but always with the implication that he's not about to let such threats stop him even if they're true.
  • Take That!: His 1 million subscriber special includes multiple mentions towards TechLead, a Youtuber who was previously accused by him of scamming his fanbase via Million Token. On top of that, a specific QR code shown during the video is actually TechLead wallet.
  • Very Special Episode: In 2024, Coffee celebrated his 1 million subscribers (even if 2 years late), releasing a short movie going over his past and an unseen background of his career before becoming the Youtuber who he is now. It's likely he will continue this plotline for his 2 and 3 million subscribers.
  • Wunza Plot: He's a detective who lives in a dreary cyberpunk world and exposes minor scams on the internet. He works with a robot bartender who used to be a professor but can't help police directly because they screen robocallers. Together, they expose bigger scams on the internet. Or at least Maxwell is aiming for this sort of dynamic.


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