Jimmy Donaldson, the YouTube star better known as MrBeast, rose to prominence by broadcasting outlandish but charitable stunts that often gave away huge sums of money.
Now the 27-year-old is asking his followers to trust him with theirs. With the acquisition of Step, a financial services app for teens and young adults that reportedly has over seven million users, MrBeast has essentially become a banker too.
Mr. Donaldson has a larger following on YouTube than anyone else in the world; Its 469 million subscribers outnumber the U.S. population, and a significant number do not yet have a high school diploma. Jeffrey Housenbold, his company’s chief executive, who arrived in 2024 to lead the growing company, called him the most popular man in the world: in the last three months, around 1.4 billion people around the world have seen his content.
In addition to YouTube, there is also a reality competition on Amazon Prime Video. Candy bars, burgers, an emerging cell phone service and even a thriller starring writer James Patterson.
Now Mr. Donaldson is moving into more regulated and consistent territory. The question is: what does he plan to do when he gets there?
The Step app offers spending, savings and investment accounts, the latter managed by parents for children under 18. It also issues a secured card that relies on deposits for spending, similar to a debit card. The catch – and it’s potentially a good one – is that it can help young people build their credit.
Teens in particular could get into trouble with these investment accounts. Mr. Housenbold believes crypto is a viable asset class – and in January, Beast Industries received a $200 million investment from digital assets platform Bitmine Immersion Technologies. Bitmine is led by Tom Lee, whose goal is to own 5 percent of the supply of the cryptocurrency Ether.
It seems like the new owner has the intention of attracting millions of teenagers to become crypto players. But Mr. Housenbold said the Greenville, North Carolina-based company has bigger ambitions for its financial services platform, with a strong focus on financial education and philanthropy. And Mr. Donaldson has said he wants to provide his followers with the financial foundations he lacked as a younger person.
“Growing up, no one taught me how to invest, build credit, or manage money,” Donaldson said in a recent social media post. “That’s exactly why we’re joining forces with Step! I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had.”
What he said
Young as he is, Mr. Donaldson is no stranger to personal financial matters and has said some sensible things about money.
In an interview with Jon Youshaei, a creative, Mr. Donaldson said he was awakened to the power of investing as a teenager while watching a gamer play Call of Duty on YouTube. This player talked about the magic of compound interest and how his investment portfolio had grown from thousands to a few million dollars.
“And it blew me away,” Mr. Donaldson told Mr. Youshaei. “I didn’t even watch him to learn about finance.”
Even before taking over Step, Mr. Donaldson had spoken publicly about the possibility of setting up a YouTube channel with personal finance content. There, he said, he could talk about things like individual Roth retirement accounts (which Step doesn’t yet offer) and do for his younger viewers what the player named Woody did for him.
What he did
Like many high-profile digital creators his age, Mr. Donaldson is curious about cryptocurrencies and related investment opportunities.
In a 2021 interview with YouTube personalities Logan Paul and Mike Majlak, Mr. Paul said Mr. Donaldson recently called him and said he had invested $1.5 million in Bitcoin. Mr. Donaldson laughed and said, “Let’s go,” with an obscenity between the two words.
During the interview, he also talked about his investments in several CryptoPunks, a type of non-fungible token or NFT. He did so, he said, at the recommendation of Gary Vaynerchuk, an entrepreneur and author who often brought together influential digital creators to suggest investment opportunities. Some of those bets returned 20 to 30 times the money he wagered, he told his interviewers.
“Jimmy would be the first to admit that this is why financial literacy is so important, especially for proud young founders like him,” Housenbold said.
Mr. Donaldson’s trading has come under scrutiny in crypto circles in the past. A company representative said the allegations were factually unfounded.
Like many founders, Mr. Donaldson has tied up most of his net worth in his company, according to Housenbold. So much so that Mr Donaldson recently said he had to take out a loan from his mother to pay for his wedding.
The Beast Financial Plan
Mr. Housenbold and Mr. Donaldson were introduced by one of Beast Industries’ investors and have worked together for nearly two years.
The couple’s vision is ambitious. Mr. Housenbold recognizes that financial services are a commodity – and believes providers can differentiate themselves through branding and ease of use.
A brief trademark application the company filed last year for “MrBeast Financial” called for loan products like cash advances and credit cards and mentioned cryptocurrency four times.
They draw the line at memecoins, volatile novelty currencies based on internet jokes or other trends, but would like to introduce their own stablecoin, a digital coin that acts as a replacement for the dollar.
The company’s plan may sound familiar, as it follows the plan of many financial services companies that preceded it, most recently Robinhood, which started with investments before expanding into a full range of other products and services. SoFi was previously known for its private student loans, but is now a bank that also offers crypto trading.
MrBeast has a unique opportunity. Mr. Housenbold said the company can spend less on customer acquisition than its competitors – and it can pass those savings on to customers in the form of a lower interest rate on loans or a higher interest rate on savings, for example, while still making a profit.
“The reach is unparalleled and we know how to tell stories,” Housenbold said. “We know how to gamify things. We know how to make things viral. We know how to connect with Generation Z and Generation Alpha.”
There was also a crypto component. Step announced 2022 plans for a new crypto and equity investment product, saying it is “the first financial app that will enable both teenagers under 18 and young adults to buy, sell, hold and receive crypto.” Then the company quietly closed the option.
According to Housenbold, Step’s crypto capability was a “net co-benefit” but not a driving factor in their business. Still, he believes in decentralized finance — which eliminates middlemen from the equation — and can imagine a future in which financial products run on a global computer network with its own digital currency.
The venture also raises questions about conflicts of interest. Not long ago, big financial personalities like Suze Orman were criticized for offering financial products.
Many may admire Mr. Donaldson for his YouTube philanthropy, but his ventures and behavior have not escaped criticism. For example, more than a dozen contestants on his $5 million reality competition show “Beast Games” said they did not receive adequate food or medical care. He has previously been called out for his poor work environment and the use of insults and offensive language.
Most recently, one of its employees was fined and temporarily suspended from Kalshi, the prediction market platform, for allegedly making near-perfect bets using non-public information related to the MrBeast show.
Mr. Housenbold said the company is committed to doing the right thing and will reward customers when they demonstrate responsible financial behavior themselves.
“You could do great things and do great things at the same time,” Mr Housenbold said, adding that the company had absorbed additional costs to ethically source its Feastables chocolate. “It’s endemic to our brand.”