- Sup, you beautiful bastards.
Welcome back to the "Philip DeFranco Show."
Hit that like button if you want me
to punch you in the throat, you weirdo.
And let's just jump into it.
You know, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today
is, did a YouTuber just admit to stealing
hundreds of thousands of dollars from his followers.
That is the question at hand,
because of a creator by the name of Coffeezilla,
who's really made a great career
out of exposing really sketchy or just outright scams
in the crypto space.
Initially, he posts this video
about a creator by the name of Ice Poseidon,
whose real name is Paul Denino.
And as far as, if you don't know who he is,
there's people like MoistCr1TiKaL have explained,
- He used to be the most influential streamer on Twitch.
But over the years, he's faded into obscurity
like a fart in the wind,
just fleeting,
but stinking the entire time.
(Philip chuckles)
- He's got such a way with words.
But while those words may feel harsh,
they might immediately feel okay because of this clip
that is in the video.
And you know, I'm gonna break this down from the beginning
to the end.
Just kinda hitting the highlights,
trying to make it consumable.
But this part just stands out so much.
- You wanna keep the money that's not yours?
That you took from the project,
even though you failed to deliver.
- I mean, I'm not really sure what you want me to say,
but yeah.
- I'm trying to like get you to return the money.
Because it's a 100% still available
and you could do that.
- Yeah, I could give the money back.
It is within my power
but I'm gonna look out for myself,
and not do that.
I don't know what else to say.
That's just the most honest answer.
- And so specifically what they're talking about there
is Ice Poseidon's alleged pump and dump scheme.
With people having compared it to previous controversies,
like Save the Kids,
and members of FaZe Clan along with others.
And in fact, before launching the coin,
Ice Poseidon talked about these pump and dump schemes
in a video and was seemingly excited
about how quickly they turn a profit.
Though, Ice goes on to claim that that was a joke.
But you have Coffeezilla in this video
then going on to explain his scam,
which allegedly worked like this.
Last July Ice Poseidon launched a cryptocurrency
that he called CX Coin.
He then promoted that coin to his fans
as a donation platform for streamers
and as Coffeezilla explains.
- Ice Poseidon repeatedly told skeptics
that he couldn't rug this coin if you wanted to.
He had locked all his money up in a smart contract.
He told me that in DMs.
He said, "Don't worry, no rug here.
All the money is locked lol."
- And according to Coffeezilla,
he was able to then convince other creators and news outlets
to trust this coin saying that he was being honest.
- [Coffeezilla] He even gave me his wallet addresses
and told me to hold him accountable.
He wasn't gonna do anything shady.
- But then, earlier this month
he says he began tracing back the wallets
that Ice Poseidon gave him.
And he found that they were actually the wrong wallets.
- He gave me Dexa Wallet instead of his personal wallet,
which didn't tell me anything.
For example, one of those things he didn't tell me
was the fact that he took out $200,000
from the liquidity pool at the very beginning,
which is directly at odds
with what Ice Poseidon told me himself
when I asked.
He said, "Don't worry, all the money is locked up."
Except for $200,000, I guess.
- Also claiming that it didn't stop there
saying that funds from a marketing wallet in CX Coin
were misused.
Saying that money was supposed to be used
for marketing campaigns,
but eventually Ice Poseidon complained
that marketing tactics were not working
and suggested the funds be used elsewhere.
- Shortly after this coin launched,
Ice Poseidon bought himself a brand new Tesla.
This video was published July 24th.
And as he says, he bought it a week ago,
putting it right around the time that he launched the coin
and realized he had suddenly gotten a lot of money
to his name.
- The Coffee's now alleging
that Ice Poseidon got a little bolder
with how he used this money
and claimed that he found $250,000
missing from the marketing wallet.
Also pointing to Ice Poseidon pushing this on his followers
saying that this is meant to be a long-term project.
But according to Coffeezilla,
he ended up giving up after just two weeks.
And with that,
he was getting increasingly frustrated
with people accusing him of being a scammer,
trying to defend himself
and even referencing his talks with Coffeezilla
in an attempt to clear his name.
But with that even Coffeezilla claiming that Ice Poseidon
was just lying to him.
And he didn't put all the pieces together until recently.
- On January 22nd, 2022
using his wallet that he didn't tell me about,
he drained the liquidity pool,
essentially killing his own coin
and taking the money from his investors.
To be specific, he drained about 90% of the funds,
which is about $300,000.
- This ultimately leading to the two talking
where it appears Poseidon
just kind of admits to wrongdoing.
Saying, yes, he did take out all those funds,
but said that it wasn't rugging
because he left some in there.
- So the crypto market is crashing
and the $300,000 isn't there.
There's two options, right?
Leave the money in there and then if BNB goes down,
it's like a $100.
The money goes to (beep) anyways,
or I could take it and the money is not just going to dust.
- The money would have never gone to dust.
I mean, it just would go back to the investors
when they sold out.
- By the pushback we've seen there
is that Poseidon shouldn't look at this as his money
because it's his investors money
and they should have a say.
Many also criticizing him
because he seems to just simply blame his investors
for buying into CX Coin in this interview.
Also when Coffeezilla presses him
on specifics and logistics,
Poseidon ends up claiming he personally profited $300,000
from the ordeal.
Conversation ultimately turns into this circle,
Ice Poseidon essentially saying,
true, but who cares?
That is until Ice Poseidon sent Coffeezilla a DM
saying that he plans to put $155,000
back into the liquidity pool
and saying that he believes that's enough
for everyone to sell if they haven't already,
but then Coffeezilla goes on to say.
- Except wait a minute,
I just checked,
Ice Poseidon doesn't even seem like he can do that much.
After DMing me, I went to the telegram
and his admin updated everyone
and said, "We just finished a buyback of over 120 BNB,
rocket emoji."
Which is not $155,000.
It's only $40,000.
- Right and so all of that, though,
I didn't get obviously to every aspect;
I'll link to the original down below.
It's part of the reason why you have creators
like MoistCr1TiKaL slamming Poseidon.
- What he actually did is just scam people
less fortunate than he is.
I really feel like he has this some kind of
main character syndrome or hero complex
because at the end of Coffeezilla's videos,
spoiler alert,
he does mention that he'll give back 155 grand.
And then like he what,
expects us to pat him on the (beep) for it
because he's giving back a fraction
of the total amount that he stole?
Like, just imagine being robbed,
they steal your TV,
they steal your X-Box PlayStation,
they steal all your electronics,
but then a week later you get a box from the burglar
and he sent you the TV remote back and nothing else.
What are you supposed to write a thank you note to them?
- And ultimately that is where we are with this story.
Now, I did reach out to Ice Poseidon to say,
hey, do you have any sort of response or statement
to all of this that happened?
Or just to hear what he has to say for himself, right?
Does he think that people are portraying the situation
in a misleading manner?
Or, I don't know, is he gonna have a response
that doesn't feel like he's just blahzay
or almost laughing at kind of fucking people over.
And I'll repeat the invite here,
though, it is a little more aggressive
because the longer I've sat with this story,
just the angrier I've gotten.
Tell me how you're not a fucking scumbag,
tell me how this is not you fucking over people
that trust you;
They probably shouldn't.
And I understand that there are gonna be a lot of people
that are like, "It's their own fault for trusting this guy."
I hear you.
But also that completely glosses over the connection
that viewers have with the people that they watch.
It's the dark side of the term influencer,
because it is accurate,
you have influence over people.
And a big issue,
and it's not just this one guy,
it's creators not respecting that
and just trying to exploit it for personal gain
to the possible detriment of the people watching them.
And hey, I'm not a completely cold bastard.
I know people make mistakes,
but when this is your reaction,
what the fuck?
But that said, that's the story.
Some of my personal takeaway.
Now, I pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts here?
And then I rarely talk about sports news on this show,
but today it feels justified
because Tom Brady officially announced his retirement
from the NFL.
There are two primary things that I wanna hit on here.
The first being as a lifelong Jets fan,
though, you might see me on social media.
bandwagoning for the Chargers or the Rams.
'Cause I got season tickets
so that I could just do something on Sundays.
But as a lifelong Jets fan,
I even have to acknowledge that Tom Brady is the GOAT.
This man and his various supporting cast
terrorized the league for two decades.
A man that he could be down by four scores
and you're like, he's still in it.
A man that has ruined
many of us who actually watch football.
Many of our Sundays,
even though I've spent many moments of many years saying,
"Fuck Tom Brady."
I gotta say congratulations to the man.
And secondly,
oh boy, there was a controversy with his announcement
that he was retiring.
And that because what seemed to be a very meaningful
number of Patriots fans were like,
okay, I'm seeing this retirement announcement.
Where's the thanks for us.
We were your team for most of your career,
with even high profile Patriot and Brady fans
like Dave Portnoy, lashing out.
- What the (beep).
I just read like five swipe right.
Tampa this,
Tampa that.
Let me suck Bruce (beep).
Let me suck the (beep) owner's Glazers (beep).
Where did you play 100 years in Tampa?
Dude, you were there for three seconds.
- And Portnoy, definitely wasn't alone in that take,
many people comparing what Brady said,
to all of a sudden Robert Kraft of the Patriots,
releasing a statement saying,
"Words can not describe the feelings I have for Tom Brady
nor adequately express the gratitude,
my family, The New England Patriots
and our fans have for Tom for all he did during his career."
"I have the greatest respect for Tom personally
and always will.
His humility coupled with his drive and ambition
truly made him special.
I will always feel a close bond to him
and will always consider him
an extension of my immediate family."
To which Tom Brady quote tweeted that saying,
"Thank you, Patriots nation.
I'm beyond grateful, love you all."
Which a number of people appreciated,
though, once again,
many people like Portnoy saying,
doesn't count almost makes it worse.
Since all of that
this debate has kind of just continued to rage on.
Right, people saying,
"Hey, he already said goodbye to the Patriots back in 2020.
He showed his love and respect."
But I really have no dog in this fight.
So, I would say to the few NFL fans
that actually watch this show,
what's your takeaway from all of this?
Do you see this as Brady doing the Patriots dirty?
Or are you thinking this is getting all blown up
for no reason?
Let me know what you're thinking
and why especially if you're a Patriots fan.
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And then we should probably talk about
this black Supreme Court nominee controversy
and debate that's happening right now.
We'll start with this
is with Ted Cruz is in the news right now
because he put out a video.
A lot of people supporting it.
A lot of people furious about it,
but here you go.
- The fact that he's willing to make a promise at the outset
that it must be a black woman.
I gotta say that's offensive.
- Right.
- Black women are what?
6% of the U.S population.
(Micheal chuckles)
He's saying to 94% of Americans,
"I don't give a damn about you.
"You are ineligible."
And he's also saying it's actually an insult to black women.
If he came and said,
I'm gonna put the best jurist on the court
and he looked at a number of people
and ended up nominating a black woman,
he could credibly say,
"Okay, I'm nominating the person who's most qualified."
He's not even pretending to say that.
He's saying if you're a white guy,
tough luck.
If you're a white woman, tough luck.
You don't qualify.
- Right, and so following this,
there was a lot of backlash on social media,
even coming from members of Congress,
like representative, Marilyn Strickland,
who tweeted,
"This nation has been built on the strength and fortitude
of black women.
We are everything from caregivers to CEOs
and soon a Supreme Court Justice.
The only thing insulting to this black woman
is Ted Cruz thinking he speaks for us."
Others also taking issue with Cruz's population math
saying that it doesn't look good
when you look up the historical makeup of the Supreme Court.
And of the 115 justices who have served in the High Court,
112 were white and 110 were men.
Meaning that 94% of all Supreme Court Justices
have been white men
and just 6% have been a person of color,
a woman or Sonia Sotomayor,
the only non white female justice ever.
With a black woman having never served on the court.
But still
it is important to note that Ted Cruz
was not the lone voice in this.
You also had Republican Senator, Roger Wicker saying
that Biden's pick would be a beneficiary
of an affirmative action quota,
as well as incoming Georgetown law administrator,
Ilya Shapiro,
who tweeted that Biden's pick would be a lesser black woman
rather than the most qualified juror.
And actually since then,
he's been placed on administrative leave
before he could even start his new job.
Also, in addition to the pushback we've talked about,
you also had people saying, "This is very hypocritical."
Noting the Republican leaders have also made similar vows
to fill the Supreme Court seats with women.
This including, Ronald Reagan, who filled his promise
with Sandra Day O'Connor,
as well as Trump who met his with Amy Coney Barrett.
And ultimately with all of that said
that the final thing that I wanna hit on here
is what are your thoughts?
Because the polls around this are all over the place.
For example, in a recent ABC News,
Ipsos poll had found that
over three quarters of American survey
want Biden and consider all possible nominees.
This including 54% of Democrats
with only 23% of all respondents
wanting the president's automatically followed through
with his vow to appoint a black woman.
But at the same time, he had The Hill reporting
"The survey conducted by the left-leaning firm
Public Policy Polling
on behalf of the progressive court reform group,
Demand Justice,
found that 48% of respondents
said that Biden should keep his promise
compared to just 31% who said he should not.
And so just from those two,
you're seeing drastically different polls.
And so, I wanna pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts?
And then today's February 1st,
which means that it's the first day of Black History Month,
which quick history lesson,
it actually started as a history week back in 1926.
Then in 1970,
after black educators at Kent State University
proposed that the year prior,
we saw the first ever celebration of Black History Month
with other schools and organizations soon following
and president Ford recognizing it in 1976.
But unfortunately, the first story about Black History Month
is that this morning,
apparently someone or some people
decided to celebrate the month
by calling in bomb threats
to over a dozen historically black universities
and colleges.
Now luckily there have been no explosions reported
but the threats have resulted in lockdowns
as well as classes being moved to remote learning.
And in some cases canceled altogether.
And what's more is that this is the second day in a row
that daily life in classes have been interrupted
by bomb threats with at least six HBCUs
also reporting bomb threats yesterday.
Now, currently it's unclear if any of these threats
are connected
and law enforcement is largely not exact,
whether they know who is behind them.
Also in addition to local and state police,
the FBI
and bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives
are also investigating the matter.
With the FBI saying in a statement today,
"The FBI is aware of the series of bomb threats
around the country
and we are working with our law enforcement partners
to address any potential threats.
And so for now, we're gonna have to wait
to see what actually comes from these investigations,
if anyone reports anything.
But it is also important to note
that this is not kind of like this outlier situation.
I mean, hell not even a month ago,
eight HBCUs received bomb threats,
prompting lockdowns and evacuations.
And then finally, we need to talk about the protests
going on in Canada right now.
And so by now you've probably seen
at least a glimpse on the news or social media
of convoys of trucks last week,
heading to the capital of Canada, Ottawa
with what some have called a freedom convoys,
supposed to be a protest of truckers
against a recent rule change
by both Canada and the United States
that requires foreign truckers entering the countries
to be fully vaccinated or test and quarantine
if they're not.
Though, notably here,
unvaccinated Canadian truckers
would still be unable to enter the U.S
even if Canada were to drop its rule.
But main thing you had truckers
arriving in the Capital on Saturday.
But also along the way, their protests morphed
into this larger protest against Canada's vaccine policy
in general.
And it gained a lot of people.
At its peak, you saw thousands in the city
and at Parliament Hill
protesting the rules.
While the protests were largely peaceful
with so many people.
There were also pockets of just disgusting assholery.
With examples spreading on social media
of Nazi flags in the crowd.
Also weirdly you had people with Confederate flags
in Canada.
And on top of that, you had some protesters
deciding to dance on the tomb of the unknown soldier
and a national war memorial,
with some, such as chief of defense, General Wayne Air
thinking that this was incredibly disrespectful.
Tweeting on Sunday,
"Generations of Canadians have fought and died
"for our rights,
"including free speech,
but not this.
"Those involved should hang their heads in shame."
There was also backlash
over the desecration of the Terry Fox Memorial.
He was an athlete in Cancer Research Activist
who ran across Canada to promote his cause
with his Memorial adorned,
with upside down Canadian flags
and anti-mandate signs.
And then on top of that,
another group allegedly harassed a homeless shelter
and demanded they be fed,
adding to the general frustration around the event.
And so with all of that,
you had Ottawa police saying
that there were several criminal investigations underway,
looking at threatening and illegal behavior
regarding the defaced monuments
as well as whether you had some protesters
displaying illegal and intimidating behavior
to police and other people,
including staff and residents at the homeless shelter.
With Trudeau himself also condemning these actions.
- I want to be very clear,
we are not intimidated
by those who hurl insults and abuse
at small business workers
and steal food from the homeless.
We won't give in to those who fly racist flags.
We won't cave to those who engage in vandalism
or dishonor the memory of our veterans.
- But on the other side of this,
we've also seen demonstrators garnering a lot of support
from prominent figures in the United States.
This including Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Some like Donald Trump Jr taking it a step further
with him calling on American truckers
to take similar actions.
You also had Fox News reporting that a GoFundMe
to support the freedom convoy was approaching $10 million
as of Monday evening,
though, according to that same report
GoFundMe, froze that campaign until organizers
offered a detailed plan regarding how funds would be spent.
And so as far as what happens next,
the protests are continuing.
Though, we are seeing some reports saying
they've begun to die down somewhat,
also that for many residents of central Ottawa,
the demonstrations likely cannot end soon enough.
Many saying they're upset at the continued noise
from the protesters
and the need for many of the truckers
to blare their horns in residential areas of the city.
Also notably, the event has spread to other parts of Canada
with truckers blocking off the Coutts border crossing,
which is near Sweet Grass, Montana,
which is very big.
It's not like they just shut off
some tiny backwater crossing.
This is one of the major crossings
between the United States and Canada,
but ultimately that is where that story ends,
today's show ends.
As always thank you for watching,
liking and being subscribed
to these daily dives into the news.
I love your faces
and I'll see you tomorrow.