MrBeast faces Senate scrutiny over teen crypto app acquisition
United States Senator Elizabeth Warren is asking Jimmy Donaldson, aka “MrBeast,” and Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold to explain why they acquired a teen app that coached minors to pressure their parents into buying crypto.
The 12-page letter demands answers about why Donaldson bought the app, called Step, that published word-for-word scripts coaching teens.
“Crypto and stock investing is not taught in my school, but by using Step, it’ll teach me life skills like how to balance risk and rewards,” the script told children to recite to their guardians.
“Mom, you’ve had Apple stock forever, bitcoin has just as much potential,” it continued.
After MrBeast’s acquisition in February, the owner of Step’s YouTube account set most of its videos to private to prevent them from being publicly viewable.
Step claims to serve about 7 million customers and focuses on minors.
Step promoted 50+ crypto assets before MrBeast buyout
In 2022, the company launched crypto trading for teens through Zero Hash LLC. Step claimed to be “the first platform to allow teens, with the consent of a parent or legal guardian, to responsibly participate first-hand in the rapidly evolving investing landscape, starting with buying and selling bitcoin.”
By April 2022, Step boasted that teens under 18 years old would be able to “access 50+ tokens” and would “be able to buy NFTs.”
It didn’t mince words about whether these purchases would be incidental, de minimis values for educational purposes.
To the contrary, it called the offering an “investing platform” to “ensure the next generation is prepared for their financial futures.”
Read more: Esports influencer fired for pumping and dumping ‘Save The Kids’ crypto
Script for kids still live on YouTube in late 2024
While the company claimed minors could invest only with parental consent, Step built the consent bypass toolkit itself with its scripted coaching tutorials.
A review of YouTube URLs confirms that they now return private notices. Several of the original links still display metadata in Google caches.
- How People Are Making Millions Off NFTs
- 3 Must-Know Crypto Terms
- 3 Facts About Bitcoin That You Didn’t Know
- How to Talk to Your Parents About Investing in Crypto
Although Step promoted crypto heavily before MrBeast acquired it, it discontinued several of its offerings over the years.
However, the script teens were supposed to use to convince their parents to invest in crypto was still live on YouTube as recently as December 28, 2024.
That’s years after the initial crypto investing initiative by Step and more than half a year after Step’s May 1, 2024 claim that it had shut down all crypto investing accounts.
The company appears to have fully ended its crypto investing post-acquisition.
Bitmine’s ETH company helped MrBeast buy Step
Beast Industries acquired Step after a $200 million investment from Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Tom Lee’s ether (ETH) treasury company.
Bitmine, embarrassingly, has lost more money investing in ETH than even FTX’s customer deposits.
MrBeast’s YouTube channel has more than 470 million subscribers. About 39% of his viewers are between ages 13 and 17, with the vast majority of his viewers younger than 25.
In late 2025, Beast Holdings LLC filed a trademark for MrBeast Financial. It mentioned crypto exchange services and decentralized exchange transactions.
MrBeast has an April 3 deadline to respond to the senator’s questions.
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