Crypto wallets linked to YouTube personality MrBeast made approximately $13 million by cashing in on a slew of token launches that were framed by analysts as pump-and-dumps, new on-chain analysis suggests.
The main wallet, which blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence haslinkedto MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, and which the content creator himselfpreviously saidhe used to buyNFTs, bought into the token sales of several controversial crypto projects—and shortly thereafter dumped the holdings for massive profits.
An investigation by pseudonymous on-chain analystSomaXBTconcluded that MrBeast-linked wallets made nearly $13 million on dumping a handful of tokens that were collectively bought—mostly over the course of 2021—for potentially as little as $250,000.
In one such case, the wallet appears to have invested $25,000 in the Ethereum meme coin Polkamon (PMON) in exchange for 25,000 PMON. Hours later, the MrBeast-affiliated address dumped the tokens for a profit of nearly $1.3 million.
As elaborated upon in detail by the pseudonymous on-chain sleuth ZachXBT at the time, Polkamon faced allegations of being designed to enrich investors and insiders by dumping on retail traders who were left holding bags with little to no value. In the summer of 2021, ZachXBT described Polkamon as a crypto project that “exemplified suspicious activity.”
Other projects that the MrBeast-linked wallet similarly profited from includeSuperVerse(SUPER), which MrBeast publicly supported in 2021 with numerous posts on Twitter. The wallet associated with the YouTube personality appears to have received one million SUPER tokens in exchange for $100,000 USDC; a month later, the wallet dumped the tokens at its all-time high peak price. Over the following weeks, SUPER crashed in value by over 90%.
All told, the MrBeast-linked wallet made over $9 million on its SUPER trades.
While these controversial moves are directly linked to a crypto wallet that MrBeast has publicly admitted to using, it is not necessarily certain that MrBeast himself made the trades.
Conor Grogan, head of product at Coinbase, has previously scrutinized transactions made by the MrBeast-linked wallet in question. But even he exercised caution about what conclusions to draw from such on-chain behavior.
“There is always a chance that a friend or producer or someone completely unrelated were behind those accounts,” Grogan toldDecrypt. “It’s too hard to tell. So I generally don’t like accusing people without firm evidence.”
Decryptreached out to MrBeast and his team regarding the transactions but did not immediately receive a response.
Edited byAndrew Hayward