Onchain crypto sleuth SomaXBT has published investigations showing how popular YouTuber Mr Beast made over $10 million by promoting low-cap crypto tokens. In the report posted on X, Soma disclosed that MrBeast backed the Initial DEX Offerings (IDO) of several tokens also promoted by other crypto influencers.
The investigation detailed several projects that the influencer supported, showing a pattern of investing in the token and getting allocations directly at launch, which he usually dumps after promoting it. Some of these projects include Polychain Monsters PMON, Splyt SHOPX, Virtue Poker VPP, and Jigstack STAK.
Interestingly, MrBeast is not the only influencer involved in these projects. Others, such as Lark Davis and KSI, were also involved and profited from some of these projects. A quick analysis of the incidents shows that all of them happened in 2021, highlighting the extent of such activities within that period.
Unsurprisingly, most of the projects promoted are now down more than 90%, even though the influencers who promoted them made millions from their activities.
MrBeast made $9 million on SUPER with a $100k investment
One of the tokens promoted by MrBeast was SUPER, the native token for SuperfarmDAO, which is now known as Superverse. According to on-chain data, the influencer invested $100,000 into the project for a 1 million SUPER allocation.
After investing in the project, he followed the SuperfarmDAO account on X. He also commented on a post from the account with the eyes emoji, signaling that this is a project to watch. However, MrBeast later transferred the 1 million SUPER tokens to a new wallet 0x4f7b6 and then sold off the whole supply in 751 trades, making 1,900 ETH worth $3.7 million.
Even after the sell-off, MrBeast’s wallet still received around $6.9 million worth of SUPER tokens from the vesting contract between May 2021 and October 2021. Unsurprisingly, he sold everything on the open market, making $9 million from all the sales. SUPER is now down 75% from its peak value.
Crypto community growing skeptical of influencers
Meanwhile, the disclosure about MrBeast further highlights the risk of influencers promoting crypto assets. A study published in 2023 shows that most influencer posts on X about crypto tokens usually cause minimal short-term gains for tokens, followed by a bigger long-term decline in their value.
Despite the limited impact of influencers and the high risk that comes with the assets they endorse, social media personalities with large followings on X and other platforms continue to promote tokens on X and attract interest from retail buyers who invest in memecoins and other unknown projects they promote.
However, there is growing opposition to these influencers from on-chain investigators who believe the promotion of these tokens is an obvious scam. This has led to increased investigations and, in some cases, doxxing of wallets connected to influencers.
Popular on-chain investigator ZachXBT recently described crypto influencer Ansem as a grifter for promoting low-cap memecoins to his followers. He later doxxed the wallets of memecoin investor Murad Mahmudov, who has been making bold predictions about low-cap memecoins, noting that these could mislead retail investors who buy these tokens.
His doxxing of Murad generated mixed reactions from the community. For some people, doxxing the wallets which show Murad’s holdings of various tokens is a good thing. They believe it will enable others to track activity and enable transparency as people will see when he sells.
However, some users are concerned that the doxxing could put Murad at risk given that his wallets currently hold around $24 million worth of memecoins. There has been a recent surge in real-world robberies of crypto holders, with criminals targeting their assets and forcing them to transfer funds.
