From Content Empire to Financial Platform: MrBeast Continues to Expand His Business Empire

Author: Zen, PANews

Original Title: The Second Curve of the Global Top Internet Celebrity: MrBeast’s Fintech Strategy

“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 an internet celebrity,” you underestimate 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” in public statements. 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 more contrasting background. By February 2026, MrBeast’s main channel had about 467 million subscribers, making him the most dominant content machine globally; but at the same time, media reports indicated that Beast Industries’ media business was facing a structural dilemma of “high revenue, even higher costs.”

The world’s top YouTuber is 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 video career. Early on, he tried all the popular algorithm-recommended content—from Minecraft gameplay to estimating other YouTubers’ wealth. However, these videos failed to attract much attention, with views barely reaching a thousand. But this didn’t 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 secret—extreme challenges, emotional triggers, and viral hooks. He then challenged himself to count to 200,000, spun a fidget spinner for 24 hours straight, and watched music videos for 10 hours straight. He dropped out of college and devoted himself fully to YouTube.

As a full-time creator, MrBeast’s ideas became more extravagant and eye-catching—donating $10,000 to a live streamer with zero viewers, pouring a billion “water babies” into a pool, staying overnight in a mental hospital, soaking in slime for a day, and more. His fan base continued to grow rapidly. To fund these 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’ top YouTubers for a real-life battle royale. Electronic Arts, the developer of the “Apex Legends” game, provided a $200,000 prize. The video quickly became a hit, with over 15 million views in a short period. From then on, MrBeast adopted a variety show-style production approach, paving his way to the top of the YouTuber hierarchy.

His super-hit video, a real-life version of “Squid Game” costing $456,000, marked a major milestone—becoming 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-earning YouTuber.

However, due to high budgets and entertainment-style production, MrBeast’s costs have skyrocketed as scale increased. Even though each video can generate several million dollars in ad and brand revenue, he reinvests almost all of it into the next project—creating a cycle of bigger budgets, larger scale, and greater reach. MrBeast admits he “reinvests everything to an almost foolish degree.”

According to Business Insider, in 2024, his media business earned about $224 million but had costs of approximately $344 million, showing a clear loss-making structure.

For MrBeast, whose origins are in video creation, the content business is more about customer acquisition and brand advertising—focusing attention and trust on the MrBeast IP. The more profitable and scalable side is consumer goods and retail.

Chocolate bars become the backbone of the business empire

MrBeast’s first large-scale experiment in monetizing content and personal IP 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 build their own stores but partner with third-party operators, bundling menus, marketing, and delivery channels with 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 strengths 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 its first physical store in New Jersey, attracting 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 Virtual Dining Concepts, his partner. The latter countered with a countersuit, leading to a prolonged legal dispute.

Unlike MrBeast Burger, his second major line—Feastables, a chocolate brand—adopts 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 MrBeast Bar chocolate bars, integrating gamification and reward mechanisms to transfer his online engagement into offline consumer products.

On October 2, 2023, Feastables partnered with the Charlotte Hornets as the official sponsor of their 2023-24 NBA jerseys, further expanding brand influence. Currently, Feastables is a cash flow pillar and growth engine in MrBeast’s business layout. 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 relatively low nutritional value and complaints about mold in 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 “selling junk 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 Jeff Housenbold joins

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

The person on the far right is Jeff Housenbold.

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

In response to Beast Industries’ “high revenue but even higher costs” situation in media, 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 world’s largest and most innovative creator platform, with values closely aligned with ours.”

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

Public filings show that this 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 products 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 existing banking-as-a-service infrastructure, card issuance capabilities, and team, then use 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 his conversion and retention more efficient: 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 like Step are naturally suited for “financial literacy” narratives. In an ideal scenario with high account activity, the long-term customer lifetime value (LTV) of 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 minors will automatically trigger higher moral scrutiny. For example, on Reddit and other communities, many users criticize MrBeast’s acquisition of Step as “always targeting teenagers,” accusing him of “inducing minors to borrow,” and suspecting him of turning fans into a traffic pool for profit.

Trusting a creator for entertainment and trusting him to handle 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” internet celebrity remains uncertain.

Furthermore, MrBeast’s methodology—using intense stimulation and generous rewards to achieve viral spread—clashes with financial regulation’s sensitivity to “gamification, lotteries, and strong inducements.”

His highly theatrical style may conflict with the restraint required by financial compliance. Financial firms have much lower tolerance for errors than snack brands; any technical failure, complaint, or disclosure controversy could lead the public to blame MrBeast and his brand entirely.

In fact, such backlash has already played out 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 (“pump and dump”). Under intense public pressure, MrBeast and his team have launched PR efforts to distance themselves.

Currently, MrBeast holds a scarce traffic card—whether he will turn this into a more inclusive, transparent, and disciplined “financial literacy path,” or simply leverage his traffic advantage for rapid growth among the most sensitive teenage audience, only he knows.