Stephen Findeisen (born 1993 or 1994), better known as Coffeezilla, is an American

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

and

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

journalist who is known primarily for his channel in which he investigates and discusses online

scam A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their Trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence ...

s, usually surrounding cryptocurrency,

decentralized finance Decentralized finance (often stylized as DeFi) provides financial instruments and services through smart contracts on a programmable, permissionless blockchain. This approach reduces the need for intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or ...

and

internet celebrities An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

. Before Coffeezilla, Findeisen was active on YouTube with the channel Coffee Break between 2017 and 2020, but, recently, he has been more active on his second channel, voidzilla.

Education

Findeisen holds a degree in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...

from

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

Career

Before his YouTube career, he sold houses for a local builder. Findeisen was motivated to hunt down scams after his mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer, was persuaded to buy questionable products with the belief that they would help cure her. His mother would later end up recovering after surgery. He began his career as a YouTuber by uploading videos in which he makes allegations about influencers and financial commentators. In October 2024

Andrew Tate Emory Andrew Tate III (born 1 December 1986) is an American and English social media personality, businessman, and former professional kickboxer who is also a citizen of Vanuatu among another countries. He gained notoriety for promoting ...

was sent a series of questions by Coffeezilla about his

meme coin A meme coin (also spelled memecoin) is a cryptocurrency that originated from an internet meme or has some other humorous characteristic. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term shitcoin, which typically refers to a cryptocurren ...

DADDY. In response, Tate

doxxed Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet and without their consent. Historically, the term has been used to refer to both the aggregat ...

Coffeezilla by leaking his email address and encouraged his supporters to email abusive content to Coffeezilla, specifically requesting that they call him "gay."

Style

Findeisen films in front of a green screen, wearing

suspenders Suspenders (American English, Canadian English), or braces (British English, New Zealand English, Australian English) are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up skirts or trousers. The straps may be elasticated, either entir ...

, with elaborate computer-generated backgrounds rendered in

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...

by his Ukrainian collaborator 1O1OO11O1O. Animated graphics are used to illustrate connections between people, flows of money, etc., while vignettes in the world outside of the studio, including a recurring character of a robot bartender called Maxwell, are used for exposition and storytelling.

Notable investigations

Save the Kids token

He gained international recognition after making a series of videos that investigated

Save the Kids token Save the Kids was a cryptocurrency token and pump and dump scheme launched in 2021, which was marketed as a charity token meant to give a percentage of the transaction fee to a Binance-operated charity. The token was widely publicized by YouTube p ...

, a cryptocurrency widely seen as a

pump and dump Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements (pump), in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price (dump). O ...

scheme. He claimed that former

FaZe Clan FaZe Clan, or simply FaZe, is a professional esports and entertainment brand. Founded on May 30, 2010, as FaZe Sniping, the organization has professional players and content creators from around the world, across multiple games. In October 20 ...

member Frazier Khattri (FaZe Kay) collaborated with YouTube prankster

Sam Pepper Samuel Nicholas Pepper (born 26 March 1989) is an English internet personality and reality TV contestant. Pepper appeared as a contestant on the 11th season of '' Big Brother'' in 2010. Later that same year, he started a YouTube channel, whe ...

. In response, Khattri's lawyers threatened to sue Findeisen in a

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...

letter unless he retracted his statements, but Findeisen called the cease and desist letter "absolute toilet paper".

SafeMoon

In April 2022, Findeisen accused the

SafeMoon SafeMoon LLC was an American cryptocurrency and blockchain company created in March 2021. The company created the SafeMoon token (SFM) which traded on the Binance#Binance coin (BNB), BNB Chain blockchain. The token charged a 10% fee on transact ...

team of misappropriating millions of dollars. According to Findeisen, Safemoon CEO John Karony had been removing funds from the liquidity pool which is the primary explanation for the crypto's price pattern. Findeisen found evidence of transactions that showed SafeMoon's liquidity wallet moving funds to a wallet dubbed the "Gabe (6abe) wallet" which withdrew funds to a separate company run by Karony. Former SafeMoon CTO Thomas "Papa" Smith was the only person who responded to Findeisen's claims stating that funds were taken from the "locked liquidity pool" before Karony's appointment. He sent Smith evidence of this in the form of a

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

transaction showing an outflow of 36.7 trillion tokens from the liquidity pool, dated March 5, 2021. Former SafeMoon CTO, Thomas Smith, who had a role as a blockchain advisor for StrikeX, was dismissed by the company after the fraud allegations uncovered by Findeisen. Coffeezilla has made multiple other reports on SafeMoon, including the pump and dump scheme against many influencers including

Soulja Boy DeAndre Cortez Way (born July 28, 1990), known professionally as Soulja Boy (formerly Soulja Boy Tell 'Em), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to prominence with his self-released 2007 debut single, "Crank That ...

Logan Paul Logan Alexander Paul (born April 1, 1995) is an American influencer, professional wrestler, Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, boxing, boxer, and actor. He has over 23 million subscribers on his YouTube channel ''Logan Paul Vlogs'' and has ranked ...

Lil Yachty Miles Parks McCollum (born August 23, 1997), known professionally as Lil Yachty, is an American rapper. He first gained recognition in August 2015 for his viral hit "One Night (Lil Yachty song), One Night", the lead single from his debut extend ...

, Ben Phillips among others as well as highlighting the controversy surrounding the SafeMoon CEO suing his own mother.

FTX

Findeisen additionally was active during the

bankruptcy of FTX The bankruptcy of FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, began in November 2022. The collapse of FTX, caused by a spike in customer withdrawals that exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, served as the impetus for its bankruptcy. ...

, interviewing

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., trading as FTX (Futures Exchange), is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after ...

founder

Sam Bankman-Fried Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 5, 1992), commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a ...

on three occasions and describing Bankman-Fried's responses during the last interview as an admission of fraud. In light of his involvement with investigating FTX in particular, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' credited Findeisen as one of the most powerful independent news sources when it comes to the cryptocurrency industry. Bankman-Fried was arrested in The Bahamas on December 12, 2022, and convicted of wire fraud and

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivat ...

in the ''

United States v. Bankman-Fried ''United States of America v. Samuel Bankman-Fried'' was a 2023 federal criminal trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Financial entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, was convicted on ...

'' trial for crimes directly related to FTX. Then, on March 28, 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

''CryptoZoo''

In December 2022, Findeisen published a three-part series on

NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

-based game ''CryptoZoo'', a project

developed and founded. He criticized the project for not delivering on its promises and said that the team engaged in

market manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation occurs when someone intentionally alters the supply or demand of a security to influence its price. This can involve spreading misleading information, executing misleading trades, or manipulating ...

. In a now-deleted video, Paul responded to the allegations, while also threatening legal action against Findeisen for

defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

and claiming that Findeisen broke "criminal and civil laws" by uploading a recording of a phone call with his manager, Jeff Levin. He withdrew the threat in January 2023. On June 27, 2024, Paul filed a lawsuit for defamation against Findeisen, along with his company, Coffee Break Productions, complaining that Findeisen had spread false information about Paul's connection with CryptoZoo. In August 2024, Findeisen responded in a video asserting that the lawsuit is a strategic move to block investigations into Liquid Marketplace, a company co-owned by Paul, which has been accused by Canadian authorities of "multi-layered fraud".

MrBeast

In November 2024, Findeisen published a video investigating the cryptocurrency activity of

Jimmy Donaldson James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), commonly known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, media personality, and businessman. His YouTube videos, where he often hosts elaborate challenges and philanthropic effor ...

(MrBeast). The investigation tracked his acquisition of various NFTs from different collections. He was investigated on allegations of insider trading from the sale of the crypto-coins: Polychain Monsters and STACK using information provided by his business partner

KSI Olajide Olayinka Williams "JJ" Olatunji (born 19 June 1993), better known by his online alias KSI, is an English influencer, professional boxer and musician. He is a co-founding member of YouTube group the Sidemen, the CEO of Misfits Boxing a ...

. The investigation was done in collaboration with blockchain experts, who tracked potential wallets belonging to Donaldson.

CSGO & CS2 Gambling

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) and after 2023

Counter-Strike 2 ''Counter-Strike 2'' is a 2023 free-to-play Tactical shooter, tactical first-person shooter video game, game developed and published by Valve Corporation, Valve. It is the fifth entry in the ''Counter-Strike'' series, developed as an updated v ...

(CS2) are multiplayer

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

videogames developed by

Valve Corporation Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, video game publisher, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution pl ...

. While skin gambling is against Steam's terms of service, there have been cases of people promoting CSGO skin gambling websites such as in 2016, when two YouTubers were criticized for the practice. In December 2024, Findeisen published a three-part web series outlining an investigation into the CS2 gambling industry. He states that CSGOEmpire, an online casino, offered him a $20,000 bounty to expose a rival site, CSGORoll and investigate HypeDrop, a Danish online casino owned by CSGORoll. The first video showcases a

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

protest against CSGORoll, funded by CSGOEmpire at the

PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 The PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 was the first ''Counter-Strike 2'' Major Championship and twentieth ''Counter-Strike'' Major overall. It was held in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Royal Arena from March 17 to 31, 2024. Twenty-four teams qualified fr ...

, a CS2 esports tournament. Findseisen then states that Monarch, the owner of CSGOEmpire hired people to harass influencers who promoted their rival. For example, notices were distributed in

Halden Halden (), between 1665 and 1928 known as Fredrikshald, is both a List of cities in Norway, town and a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Østfold Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality borders Sarpsborg to the northwest, R ...

, Norway denouncing Sebastian Gjerlaugsen (who is from there) for promoting gambling. His second video explores the CSGO and CS2 gambling industry as a whole. Findeisen states that minors were easily able to access these casinos without requiring sufficient verification. then explores the roles of online influencers in promoting such websites. He then discusses HypeDrop, a website where one can purchase

loot box In video game terminology, a loot box (also called a loot crate or prize crate) is a consumable virtual item which can be redeemed to receive a randomised selection of further virtual items, or Loot (video gaming), ''loot'', ranging from simpl ...

es. Findeisen states that HypeDrop enacted a program, offering free daily crates to customers, to convince the Danish Gambling Authority that they were not a gambling site. Monarch also accused them of running a Ponzi scheme. The site was closed on April 26, 2024. In his third video, Findeisen accuses and holds Valve responsible for enabling such gambling schemes, and failing to proactively crack down on these sites without public pressure.

''$LIBRA'' Token Scandal

On February 17, 2025, Findeisen conducted an interview with Hayden Davis, the CEO of the company behind the $Libra cryptocurrency scandal, where Davis claimed to have profited US$113 million from the currency promoted by

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

's president

Javier Milei Javier Gerardo Milei (born 22 October 1970) is an Argentine politician and economist who has served as President of Argentina since 2023. Milei also served as a national deputy representing the City of Buenos Aires for the party La Libertad ...

while also denying allegations of a rug pull scam.

Personal life

Findeisen has been married since 2017 and lives with his wife in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas.

References

External links

YouTube Channel Coffeezilla

YouTube Channel Coffee Break

YouTube Channel Voidzilla
{{Commons 2018 establishments in the United States American male journalists American YouTube vloggers English-language YouTube channels Living people American social media influencers Texas A&M University alumni YouTube channels launched in 2018 YouTubers from San Antonio 1990s births Critics of cryptocurrency