Darren Watkins Jr., also known as IShowSpeed, is a popular YouTuber who has come under a lot of scrutiny in the last few weeks. Things worsened when he found himself in the middle of an alleged crypto scam. He was promoting Paradox.coin, a crypto scheme. He was giving away PlayStation 5 to his audience.
In a now-deleted stream, IShowSpeed was seen promoting a company that promised to launch the biggest crypto, Paradox ccoin. He was seen wearing a t-shirt that had the logo of the company. Watkins was urging his fans to follow the crypto project’s Instagram handle. He was then joined by a few guests who said the new coin would be “the biggest crypto coin in the world.” They also said viewers who sign up for the coin would get a PlayStation 5. Speed was also seen signing consoles and started receiving donations as his viewers called him out.
Rather than acknowledging that he was trying to misguide his audience, Watkins started asking his moderators to ban whoever was talking ill about Paradox coin on the stream. After the massive backlash, he accepted that he had made a “mistake.” Watkins also asserted he had no intentions of scamming his audience. He said: “I made a little mistake that I wish I never did, but I’m not a scammer, bro.”
“The fact that you all would ever even think of me like that. I don’t even know if y’all are trolls or not. But the fact that you guys would think of me like that is kind of f***e’s kinda making my feelings hurt,” IShowSpeed said.
Upon snooping more into what the Paradox Metaverse was, the audience discovered that they called themselves an “AAA-quality, open-world battle royale” title.
Besides having a questionable user experience, there were a lot of questions raised by people. YouTuber Coffeezilla, whose primary focus was crypto and scams surrounding it, covered Paradox Metaverse after IShowSpeed’s stream started receiving backlash. In a two-hour stream interview with the Paradox co-founders Amio Talio and Faisal Tariq, Coffeezilla deduced they were running a Ponzi scheme. He said:
“They’re trying to confuse you because if you understood how a Ponzi scheme worked, you’d never truly invest.”
As far as the 17-year-old Darren is concerned, he has since deleted the sponsored stream and asked his audience to forgive him. He also posted an apology video claiming he never intended to scam his viewers.