The Second Curve of Global Top Influencers: MrBeast's Fintech Strategy

Author: Zen, PANews

“I want to do something bigger.” On February 9, Beast Industries announced the acquisition of the teenage and Gen Z financial app Step—a product focused on “credit building, savings tools, and debit cards.”

If you only see it as “another side hustle for internet celebrities,” you’re underestimating the scale of this move. Because prior to this news, the market had already seen clearer signs of preparation.

In January 2026, publicly listed company Bitmine announced a $200 million investment in Beast Industries. Chairman Tom Lee explicitly linked MrBeast’s future with the narrative of a “digital financial platform.” As early as October 2025, Beast had filed a trademark application for “MRBEAST FINANCIAL,” marking out a vast territory.

All of this happened against a stark backdrop. By February 2026, MrBeast’s main channel had approximately 467 million subscribers, making him the most dominant content machine globally; meanwhile, Beast Industries’ media business was reported to be facing a structural dilemma of “high revenue, even higher costs.”

Top YouTuber but increasingly unprofitable

MrBeast, born Jimmy Donaldson, is the most successful and creative video creator on YouTube, bar none. Now, at 27, with 467 million followers, MrBeast has been creating content for 14 years.

In early 2012, at just 13 years old, MrBeast launched his YouTube channel “MrBeast6000,” beginning his content creation journey. Early on, he experimented with all trending algorithm-recommended content—from gameplay videos of Minecraft to estimating the wealth of other YouTubers. However, these videos failed to attract much attention, with views barely reaching a thousand. Yet, this did not stop him; MrBeast believed that with more effort, he would eventually stand out.

His first major breakthrough came in January 2017, when he uploaded a video of himself counting to 100,000, which quickly went viral, garnering tens of thousands of views within days. Seeing this success, MrBeast identified his initial traffic formula—extreme challenges, emotional triggers, and viral hooks. He then escalated to counting to 200,000, spinning a fidget spinner for 24 hours straight, and watching music videos for 10 hours straight. He dropped out of college and dedicated himself fully to YouTube.

As a full-time creator, MrBeast’s content became more extravagant and eye-catching—donating $10,000 to a live streamer with no viewers, pouring a billion water beads into a pool, spending a night in a mental hospital, soaking in slime for a day, and more. His subscriber count continued to soar. To fund these creative videos, MrBeast relied not only on ad revenue and merchandise sales but also signed numerous brand deals worth tens of thousands of dollars. These companies, attracted by his massive audience and high view counts, were willing to pay premium prices.

In March 2019, MrBeast gathered over 200 million subscribers’ worth of top YouTubers for a real-life battle royale. The game “Apex Legends,” developed by Electronic Arts, provided a $200,000 prize. The video quickly became a hit, with over 15 million views in a short period. This marked the beginning of MrBeast’s move toward a variety show-style production approach, propelling him to the top of the YouTuber hierarchy.

His super-viral “real-life Squid Game,” costing $456,000, was a major milestone—one of the most-watched videos on YouTube in 2021, with over 130 million views in a week. That same year, MrBeast hosted the third influencer tournament with 15 contestants and a $1 million prize. In January 2022, Forbes estimated his 2021 earnings at $54 million, making him the highest-paid YouTuber.

However, due to high budgets and a variety show approach, MrBeast’s investments in increasingly elaborate challenges, sets, filming, and post-production caused costs to escalate rapidly. Even though each video could generate millions of dollars in ad and brand revenue, he often reinvested nearly all of that into the next project, creating a cycle of higher budgets, larger scale, and greater reach. MrBeast admits he “reinvests almost to the point of foolishness.”

According to Business Insider, in 2024, his media business earned about $224 million, but costs reached approximately $344 million, resulting in a clear loss.

For a content creator like MrBeast, the core of his business is more about customer acquisition and brand advertising—focusing attention and trust on the MrBeast IP. The more profitable and scalable side is in consumer goods and retail.

Chocolate bars as a business pillar

MrBeast’s first large-scale experiment in monetizing content and personal brand was the launch of “MrBeast Burger” in 2020. Unlike traditional fast-food chains, MrBeast Burger adopted the “ghost kitchen” model that surged during the pandemic: brands don’t operate their own stores but partner with third-party operators, bundling menus, marketing, and delivery channels into existing convenience stores and small restaurants.

This model’s advantage is rapid expansion—no need to open, choose locations, or renovate stores like traditional restaurants. Instead, it leverages MrBeast’s content distribution to reach consumers quickly. In the first three months, MrBeast Burger sold over 1 million burgers. Over the next two years, the brand expanded rapidly, signing about 1,700 franchisees by 2022. In September 2022, MrBeast opened his first physical store in New Jersey, drawing around 10,000 fans on opening day.

However, the ghost kitchen model also has critical flaws. Since fulfillment relies on partner kitchens, maintaining consistent quality and service standards is difficult. Problems like undercooked burgers, soggy fries, order errors, and packaging chaos have led to negative reviews and irreparable damage to the brand.

Faced with these issues, MrBeast decided to abandon the burger business and sued his partner Virtual Dining Concepts. The latter countered with a countersuit, leading to a prolonged legal dispute.

In contrast, MrBeast’s second major venture, the chocolate brand Feastables, follows a traditional consumer product approach. It produces standardized products, sells through retail channels, and builds a brand that encourages repeat purchases. Feastables launched in January 2022 with the MrBeast Bar chocolate, integrating gamified interactions and reward mechanisms to transfer his online engagement strengths into offline consumer goods.

On October 2, 2023, Feastables partnered with the Charlotte Hornets as the official sponsor of their 2023-24 NBA jersey, further expanding brand influence. Currently, Feastables is a cash flow pillar and growth engine in MrBeast’s business portfolio. In 2024, sales are estimated at about $250 million with a profit of around $20 million; by 2025, sales are projected to reach approximately $520 million.

Additionally, MrBeast co-founded the snack set brand Lunchly, targeting the same market as Lunchables. However, Lunchly’s products are similar to existing Lunchables, with lower nutritional value and complaints about moldy packaging. All Lunchly products include a Feastables chocolate bar, which some media suggest is aimed at boosting Feastables sales.

Lunchly has faced criticism. YouTube gaming star DanTDM called it “junk sold to naive kids,” and the UK youth organization Bite Back expressed concern over a social media influencer promoting high-sugar, high-fat foods. The Children’s Food and Nutrition Alliance described the product launch as “junk food marketing.”

Key executive joins

In early 2024, during a funding round, investor Chamath Palihapitiya introduced MrBeast to Jeff Housenbold, who then joined and helped professionalize the company’s operations.

Right: Jeff Housenbold

Housenbold is well-suited to help manage MrBeast’s empire. He was CEO of Shutterfly, leading the company through a successful IPO in 2006 and turning it into the fifth-largest independent e-commerce company in the U.S. He also served as managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, overseeing the $100 billion Vision Fund. His investments include DoorDash, Rappi, Compass, and Katerra.

To address the “high revenue, even higher costs” issue in Beast Industries’ media operations, Housenbold introduced stricter budgeting processes and established teams to evaluate project feasibility before filming, aiming to improve spending discipline while maintaining quality.

Previously, MrBeast often purchased expensive gifts like Teslas at retail price. Under Housenbold’s leadership, the company shifted toward obtaining free or discounted products through brand partnerships, establishing a dedicated team for this purpose. Housenbold’s goal is “making everything the company does profitable,” including renegotiating ad contracts, raising prices, and reducing costs with tools and AI.

Acquiring Step: a giant leap into finance

“We believe MrBeast and Beast Industries are among the most outstanding content creators of our generation, with influence and user engagement unmatched among Gen Z, Alpha, and Millennials,” he said. “Beast Industries is the largest and most innovative creator platform globally, and our values align closely.”

In January this year, the largest ETH treasury company, Bitmine, announced a $200 million investment in MrBeast’s holding company. Chairman Tom Lee expressed confidence that MrBeast’s future platform will play a key role in digital finance.

MrBeast’s first major financial move drew widespread attention when his company filed a U.S. trademark application for “MRBEAST FINANCIAL” in October 2025, integrating basic banking, credit, investment, crypto, and DeFi under a unified brand narrative.

The trademark covers a broad range of financial services, including mobile banking apps, short-term small loans, credit and debit card issuance and processing, investment management, investment banking, insurance, financial consulting, “financial health education,” crypto payment processing, and “cryptocurrency exchange via decentralized exchanges (DEX).”

On February 9, 2026, Beast Industries announced the acquisition of Step, officially entering the financial industry. As a next-generation fintech platform, Step claims to have over 7 million users and emphasizes a “full-stack fintech team” aimed at providing financial literacy and management products. Its financial offerings are supported by partner bank Evolve Bank & Trust (Member FDIC).

Step’s core demographic is teenagers and Gen Z, closely matching MrBeast’s audience. This acquisition allows MrBeast to leverage an existing banking-as-a-service infrastructure, card issuance capabilities, and team, while using his strongest assets—traffic and distribution—to acquire customers and educate.

Traditional fintech customer acquisition is costly, but MrBeast has access to top global attention. This could make conversion and retention more efficient than typical financial apps: first building trust through content, then introducing financial education and basic account products, gradually expanding to credit building, debit/prepaid cards, and other compliant scenarios. Products aimed at young people naturally fit the “financial literacy” narrative. In an ideal scenario with high account activity, the long-term customer lifetime value (LTV) of these financial products could significantly surpass that of food retail.

However, there are potential issues. Even if Step’s focus is on financial education and basic accounts, involving teenagers raises higher moral scrutiny. For example, on Reddit and other communities, many users criticize MrBeast’s acquisition of Step as “targeting teenagers,” questioning whether it “induces minors to borrow,” and accusing him of turning fans into a traffic pool for profit.

Trusting a creator for entertainment versus trusting him with children’s financial basics are two different psychological thresholds. Whether parents are willing to entrust their children’s financial access to a high-stimulation, entertainment-heavy brand like MrBeast remains uncertain.

Furthermore, MrBeast’s methodology—using intense stimulation and generous rewards for viral spread—clashes with strict financial regulation against gamification, lotteries, and strong inducements.

His highly theatrical style may conflict with compliance requirements. Financial firms have much lower tolerance for mistakes than snack brands; any technical failure, complaint, or disclosure controversy could be blamed entirely on MrBeast and his brand.

Such backlash has already appeared in the cryptocurrency space. Over the past few years, MrBeast’s investments in crypto have sparked controversy. PANews previously reported on on-chain investigations suggesting he may have used his influence to manipulate prices. Under mounting public pressure, MrBeast and his team have launched PR efforts to distance themselves.

He currently holds a scarce traffic card, but whether he will turn this into a more inclusive, transparent, and disciplined “financial literacy path” or simply leverage traffic for rapid growth among the most sensitive teenage audience remains his own decision.