Investigation: MrBeast got rich from scams, insider trading, and misleading investors.

A group of digital detectives has accused James Stephen Donaldson, a 26-year-old YouTuber with 326 million subscribers, of employing various crypto scams and illegal lotteries, and using his influence to mislead investors.

The young American celebrity who goes by the nickname "MrBeast" is accused in particular of promotion of tokens for his personal benefit. Five on-chain analysts who call themselves collectively the “Loock Team” published an investigation that reveals an intricate web of connections to over 50 cryptocurrency wallets linked to Donaldson.

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The team, including chain analyst Kasper Vanderloock, has meticulously mapped out Donaldson's network of wallets over several years, beginning with his NFT purchases back in 2021, when these assets still held considerable value.

Their findings suggest a pattern of insider trading, misleading investors, and leveraging his influence to promote tokens, only to sell them off later. MrBeast frequently uses exchanges like Gemini and Binance, with his Binance account alone facilitating transfers exceeding $13 million.

The YouTuber has made around $23 million from them using a series of shady techniques including pump-and-dump schemes.

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The primary wallet address linked to MrBeast is 0x9e67D018488aD636B538e4158E9e7577F2ECac12, from which multiple secondary wallets emerge.

He has publicly disclosed some of these wallets, notably when announcing his purchase of CryptoPunks. In a podcast, MrBeast discussed acquiring CryptoPunks and VeeFriends, which aligns with on-chain activity showing purchases of VeeFriends across two wallets.

The group uncovered MrBeast’s network and transactions starting from the above-mentioned address, publishing charts and graphics that are difficult to crack even for crypto specialists.

According to the investigation, Mr Beast repeatedly invested large amounts of cash into cryptocurrency projects during their pre-sale period and – after a strong promotion via his social media profiles – got massive returns. Crypto is a hard business to make money from and the analysts pointed out that Donaldson wins more than he loses, which is quite unusual for someone who is an amateur in the field and isn’t doing it full time.

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The YouTube star is actually embroiled in a series of scandals, facing among others a probe by the FBI for alleged sale of moldy cheese to children and an ongoing lawsuit filed by contestants of his upcoming Amazon show.

“With Mr Beast’s track record of consistently hitting large returns whilst being a full-time content creator and owning various businesses, there is an extremely high likelihood that his success in cryptocurrency investing is not the result of sharp trading intuition but just knowing insider information, particularly related to upcoming brand deals and partnerships within his network, including figures like KSI, GaryVee, and LazarBeam,” the investigation reads.

It is unclear whether the authorities including the Securities and Exchange Commission have taken note of the investigation and turned an eye on the super successful content creator.

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Donaldson has the most subscribers of any YouTube channel, and is the third-most-followed creator on TikTok with over 104 million followers. He also has over 60 million followers on Instagram and 30.9 million on X (formerly Twitter). 

Donaldson is the founder of MrBeast Burger, Feastables, and a co-founder of Team Trees, nonprofit fundraiser. He went viral in 2017 after his "counting to 100,000" video earned tens of thousands of views in just a few days. His wealth is estimated at $500 million.

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