Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter Monday to Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold and YouTube personality MrBeast, whose legal name is Jimmy Donaldson, requesting information about the company’s recent acquisition of teen-focused mobile banking app Step. The 12-page letter urges the company to proceed carefully as it considers incorporating cryptocurrency into the platform. Warren, a longtime critic of digital assets, argues that Beast Industries’ track record raises concerns about its capacity to manage a financial technology product aimed at children and teenagers.
The letter centers heavily on Step’s prior involvement with crypto. In 2022, Step became the first platform in the United States to allow teenagers, with parental or guardian consent, to purchase digital assets such as Bitcoin. The company subsequently expanded access to more than 50 digital assets, including NFTs, and promoted these offerings across social media channels.
Warren contends that Step encouraged what she characterizes as risky investments among young users. She points to resources the app allegedly provided that coached children on how to persuade their parents to approve crypto purchases through Step, including a script posted to YouTube. The senator argues this kind of marketing raises serious questions about the company’s approach to consumer protection for minors.
Although Step moved away from crypto in 2024, Warren notes that Beast Industries has signaled the acquisition could open doors to cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, commonly known as DeFi. Around the same time, Beast Industries filed a trademark for “MrBeast Financial,” with language referencing crypto-based services for trading and payments using DeFi infrastructure. Warren’s letter poses 11 specific questions to the company, including how it plans to handle cases where users lose funds due to fraud, scams, or cybersecurity failures.
A spokesperson for Beast Industries responded by saying the company appreciates Warren’s outreach and intends to engage with her as Step develops under MrBeast’s ownership. The spokesperson stated that the company’s primary motivation for the deal is to improve the financial future of the next generation. Beast Industries added that it is reviewing all existing offerings and marketing strategies to ensure Step’s development meets high quality standards and complies with applicable laws and regulations.
Warren’s letter also highlights MrBeast’s massive social media following of over 500 million, arguing that his fans are highly loyal and likely to entrust their savings and financial futures to the creator. Prior to completing the Step acquisition, Beast Industries disclosed a $200 million investment from BitMine, an Ethereum treasury firm chaired by Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee.
Beast Industries has also drawn attention in a separate controversy involving prediction markets platform Kalshi. Earlier this year, Kalshi announced it had taken enforcement action against a video editor connected to MrBeast’s operation, who was subsequently fired. The employee was found to have used advance knowledge of MrBeast’s video content to execute near-perfect trades on the platform, raising additional questions about oversight practices within the company’s broader ecosystem.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
