Cross-industry Collaboration: Tom Lee Invests $200 Million to Partner with Global Top Influencer Mr. Beast

Title: “Global Superstar MrBeast Becomes a Big Name for Tom Lee”

Author: Seed.eth

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

$200 million is the figure just announced today.

BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), chaired by well-known Wall Street analyst Tom Lee, announced it will invest in the parent company behind the top internet celebrity MrBeast (Mr. Beast), Beast Industries. Meanwhile, Beast Industries stated in an official release that the company will explore how to “integrate DeFi into the upcoming financial services platform.”

If you only look at the news, it seems like another familiar crossover: traditional finance, crypto, internet celebrities, startups—on one side is the YouTube giant with over 400 million total subscribers, where a single video can be algorithmically weighted in your favor; on the other side is the top-tier crypto narrative expert on Wall Street, skilled at embedding blockchain grand concepts into balance sheets—everything seems logical and natural.

The Path of MrBeast

Looking back at MrBeast’s early videos, it’s hard to connect them with today’s $5 billion valuation of Beast Industries.

In 2017, shortly after graduating high school, Jimmy Donaldson ( uploaded a video of himself counting from 1 to 44 hours straight—“Challenge: Count from 1 to 100000!” The content was so simple it was almost childish—no plot, no editing, just one person facing the camera, repeatedly repeating numbers, yet it became a turning point in his content career.

At that time, he was under 19, with only about 13,000 subscribers. The video quickly surpassed one million views, becoming the first phenomenon-level viral case globally.

Later, in interviews, he recalled that period and said:

“I wasn’t really trying to go viral; I just wanted to see if, by dedicating all my time to something no one else wanted to do, the results would be different.”

Jimmy Donaldson succeeded in gaining fame and became the well-known MrBeast. But more importantly, from that moment on, he formed an almost obsessive belief: attention is not a gift of talent but earned through投入 and endurance.

Treat YouTube as a Business, Not Just a Content Platform

Many creators, after gaining popularity, choose to “consolidate”: reduce risks, improve efficiency, and turn content into stable cash flow.

MrBeast took the opposite approach.

He repeatedly emphasizes in interviews:

“Most of the money I make is spent on the next video.”

This is the core of his business model.

By 2024, his main channel has over 460 million subscribers, with total video views exceeding 100 billion. But behind this is extremely high costs:

· Cost of producing a top-tier video, consistently between $3 million–$5 million;

· Some large challenges or charity projects can cost over $10 million;

· On Amazon Prime Video, “Beast Games,” which he described as “completely out of control” in production, and admitted in interviews that it lost tens of millions of dollars.

He said this without showing regret:

“At this level, you can’t save money and still expect to win.”

This statement is almost the key to understanding Beast Industries.

Beast Industries: $400 million annual revenue, but thin profit margins

By 2024, MrBeast unified all his businesses under the name Beast Industries.

From publicly available information, this company has far exceeded the scope of a “creator side hustle”:

· Annual revenue over $400 million;

· Business spans content production, fast-moving consumer retail, licensed merchandise, and tools;

· After the latest round of funding, market expectations for its valuation are around $5 billion.

But it’s not easy.

MrBeast’s YouTube main channel and Beast Games bring huge exposure but almost consume all profits.

Contrasting sharply with content, his chocolate brand Feastables shows a different picture. Public data indicates that in 2024, Feastables sales reached about $250 million, contributing over $20 million in profit. This marks Beast Industries’ first stable, replicable cash flow business. By the end of 2025, Feastables had entered over 30,000 physical retail stores across North America (including Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven, etc.), covering the US, Canada, and Mexico, greatly enhancing the brand’s offline sales capacity.

MrBeast has openly stated multiple times that video production costs are rising and becoming “harder to recoup.” Yet he continues to invest heavily in content creation because, in his view, this is not just paying for videos but buying traffic for the entire business ecosystem.

The core barrier of the chocolate business isn’t production but reaching consumers. While other brands need to spend huge sums on advertising, he only needs to release a video. Whether the video is profitable or not doesn’t matter; as long as Feastables keeps selling, this business loop can keep running.

“I’m actually a broke guy”

In early 2026, MrBeast revealed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he is a “broke guy,” sparking discussion:

“I’m basically in ‘negative cash’ right now. People say I’m a billionaire, but I don’t have much in my bank account.”

This isn’t boasting but a natural result of his business model.

MrBeast’s wealth is highly concentrated in unlisted equity; although he owns just over 50% of Beast Industries, the company continues to expand with almost no dividends; he even deliberately keeps no cash on hand.

In June 2025, he admitted on social media that he had spent all his savings on video production and even had to borrow money from his mother to pay for his wedding.

As he later explained more bluntly:

“I don’t look at my bank account balance—that would influence my decisions.”

And his investment tracks have long gone beyond content and consumer goods.

In fact, as early as the NFT boom in 2021, blockchain records show he bought and traded multiple CryptoPunks, some sold at prices as high as 120 ETH (roughly hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time).

However, as the market entered a correction phase, his attitude became more cautious.

The real turning point is that “MrBeast”’s own business model has reached a critical edge.

When someone controls the world’s top traffic entry points but remains in a state of high investment, cash tightness, and expansion reliance on financing, finance is no longer just an investment option but a fundamental infrastructure that must be reconstructed.

In recent years, internal discussions within Beast Industries have gradually clarified the question: how to make users no longer just “watch content, buy products” but enter into a long-term, stable, and sustainable economic relationship?

This is precisely the direction that traditional internet platforms have been exploring for years: payments, accounts, credit systems. At this juncture, the emergence of Tom Lee and BitMine Immersion (BMNR) points the way toward a more structural possibility.

Partnering with Tom Lee to Build DeFi Infrastructure

On Wall Street, Tom Lee has always played the role of a “narrative architect.” From early explanations of Bitcoin’s value logic to emphasizing Ethereum’s strategic importance in corporate balance sheets, he is adept at translating technological trends into financial language. BMNR’s investment in Beast Industries is not about chasing internet celebrity hype but betting on the programmable future of attention entry points.

So, what does DeFi mean here?

Currently, public information is very restrained: no token issuance, no yield promises, and no fan-exclusive financial products. But the phrase “integrate DeFi into financial services platform” points to several possibilities:

• Lower-cost payment and settlement layers;

• Programmable account systems for creators and fans;

• Asset recording and rights structures based on decentralized mechanisms.

The space of imagination is large, but the challenges are also clear. In today’s market, whether native DeFi projects or traditional institutions exploring transformation, most have yet to establish sustainable models. If they cannot find a differentiated path in this fierce competition, the complexity of financial business might erode the core capital he has accumulated over many years: fan loyalty and trust. After all, he has publicly stated multiple times:

“If one day what I do harms the audience, I’d rather do nothing.”

This statement may be repeatedly tested in every future financialization attempt.

So, when the world’s most powerful attention machine begins to seriously build financial infrastructure, will it become a new platform or an overly bold crossover?

The answer won’t be revealed soon.

But one thing he knows better than anyone: the greatest capital is not past glory but the right to “start over.”

After all, he is only 27.