The YouTube creator doesn’t appear to have broken any laws, but his actions have sparked ethical concerns within the crypto community.
MrBeast, one of YouTube’s most popular creators, has been accused of participating in cryptocurrency promote-and-dump schemes that have allegedly earned him more than $10 million.
The accusations were levied against MrBeast by a blockchain investigator using the handle SomaXBT on the X social media platform.
Source: SomaXBT
According to SomaXBT, MrBeast “allegedly made $10M+ by backing low-cap IDO crypto tokens promoted by influencers like Lark Davis, CryptoBanter, KSI, and others.”
Promote and dump
SomaXBT’s investigation alleges that MrBeast invested $100,000 in a project called SuperFarmDAO. He then supposedly used his status as an influencer to inflate the project’s related SUPER token before dumping his shares.
This, according to SomaXBT, led to MrBeast exchanging millions of dollars’ worth of SUPER into Ether and moving it throughout several wallets where he ultimately wound up profiting more than $9 million.
Cointelegraph reached out to MrBeast’s media team for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.
SomaXBT went on to describe similar activity by MrBeast in allegedly promoting and then dumping assets associated with the Polychain Monsters, STAK, VPP and SHOPX projects.
Destruction of value
It’s unclear at this time whether MrBeast willingly or unintentionally misrepresented his stance on the projects — none of the statements seen by Cointelegraph demonstrate MrBeast indicating a long-term commitment to them.
However, the alleged actions are part and parcel of a larger debate unfolding throughout the cryptocurrency community.
As Cointelegraph recently reported, many industry insiders believe that pumping and dumping low-cap tokens is detrimental to the cryptocurrency community. And there’s been no shortage of vitriol aimed at those who participate in such schemes.
Messari data engineer Mike Kremer, for example, recently sounded off on the subject in an Aug. 19 newsletter, saying that this activity destroys value both for the project itself and the cryptocurrency sector in general.
Per Kremer:
“Here, insiders or cartels create tokens like supercumrocket69, hype them up, and lure retail investors into bidding on these ‘revolutionary’ new assets.”
Another popular investigator, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, recently slammed crypto influencer and trader Ansem for allegedly promoting low-cap tokens and “facilitating a string of memecoin pump-and-dumps.”
