Happy Nice Mall

Some of the projects Mr. Armstrong supported were small-time, experimental crypto startups that eventually ran into problems. In those cases, he said, he sees himself as a victim too.

“They are hunting the novice crypto influencer who is popular and trying to figure out what they should and should not do,” he said. “It’s hard to go from 12,000 followers to a million in a year and make all the right decisions.”

Mr. Paul rose to fame as a video blogger and occasional actor; YouTube once scolded For posting footage of a corpse he found in the Japanese forest. Over the years, he’s turned his internet fame into an eclectic array of entrepreneurial pursuits, including a line of energy drinks.

Mr. Paul became interested in crypto last year when the NFT market started booming. In a recent interview, he admitted that he has learned how to navigate the crypto market even as he tries to profit from the technology. “I’m an extreme opinion person, not much of a cultivator,” he said.

Mr. Paul was involved in part of the initial brainstorming of the Dink Doink project. But the venture was led by one of his roommates, Jake Broido, who ultimately gave Mr. Paul 2.5 percent of the initial tokens.

In chirp Last June, Mr. Paul described it as one of the “dumpest, most ridiculous” cryptocurrencies he has come across and posted a video of a cartoon character singing sexually explicit lyrics. “That’s why I’m here,” he added. He was also featured in a shaky cam video on Telegram in which he hailed Dink Doink as possibly his favorite crypto investment.

The campaign was a fiasco and Mr. Paul exposed by YouTube critics. The price of Dink Doink well under a cent, before depreciating further over the summer. Mr. Paul said he never sold his tokens or profited from the project. However, he said he regretted promoting the coin without disclosing its financial stake. “I certainly didn’t act as responsibly as I should have,” he said.