YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, is making a push into financial services with his acquisition of Step, a money app for teens and young adults.
Donaldson’s Beast Industries now owns Step, which claims to have more than seven million users. Step is not a bank but partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust to offer bank services, including FDIC-insured deposit accounts, a Visa debit card, and money transfer services. Celebrities such as Steph Curry, Justin Timberlake, Will Smith and Charli D'Amelio previously invested in Step, which raised about $500 million since its founding in 2018.
"Financial health is fundamental to overall wellbeing, yet too many people lack access to the tools and knowledge they need to build financial security," said Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries. "This acquisition positions us to meet our audiences where they are, with practical, technology-driven solutions that can transform their financial futures for the better."
MrBeast is the most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world with over 450 million subscribers and more than five billion monthly views across all of its social media channels. Other ventures from Beast Industries include snack brand Feastables and a reality TV series called Beast Games that streams on Amazon Prime Video.
"Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up. That's exactly why we’re joining forces with Step! I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had," Donaldson wrote on his MrBeast X account with 40 million followers.
Beast Holdings, LLC, filed a trademark for MrBeast Financial in October 2025, outlining plans for a mobile app that offers crypto exchange, payment processing, banking, and insurance services. The acquisition of Step follows last month’s announced $200 million investment from Ethereum holding company Bitmine into Beast Industries, further signaling Donaldson’s plans to include cryptocurrency aspects in his financial services business.
A press release mentions plans to integrate Step’s full-stack fintech teams with Beast Industries' audience reach and philanthropic initiatives, led by its 501(c)(3) nonprofit Beast Philanthropy that’s committed to food insecurity, clean water and infrastructure causes. The Rockefeller Foundation announced a partnership with Beast Industries in November 2025.
“Finfluencers,” or popular social media influencers who give financial advice, have become increasingly popular for young people on the internet. A Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans ages 18 to 29 go to social media for financial information, while just 27% of the same demographic are turning to financial advisors and planners.
“The percentage of young adults using social media for financial advice is stunning and truly concerning. There is so much misinformation being shared by finfluencers, and sadly this young demographic trusts what they hear,” Bridget Venus Grimes, president of the independent RIA WealthChoice, told InvestmentNews last year. Grimes is also an ambassador for the CFP Board.
Financial advisor Sam Huszczo has a popular social media presence with over 35,000 followers on Instagram and 19,000 followers on Linkedin, using his following to fuel organic growth for his $570 million Michigan-based RIA SGH Wealth Management. “These finfluencers, there's no regulation, which is pretty frustrating for me,” Huszczo told InvestmentNews.
“The system needs improvement, because [finfluencers] are the ones that are giving access to financial education, because there's no restrictions on what they can say,” said Huszczo. “And then the people that actually are experts are so controlled by the SEC that a lot of them don't feel comfortable even posting on social media. And so what does that mean for the general public? The general public has access to crappy advice, and they don't have any counterbalance to that.”
The online brokerage Open to Public Investing was fined $350,000 by FINRA last May for violations related to monitoring statements made by social media influencers who affiliated with the brokerage.
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