MrBeast has finally addressed the ‘crypto scam’ allegations amid growing criticism from people online.
In a tell-all interview, MrBeast - whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson - shed some light on the controversy surrounding his investments in cryptocurrency.
The content creator became well known for his elaborate contests with huge cash sums, earning him the title of most subscribed-to YouTube channel with 332 million followers.
Now Donaldson has sat down with fellow YouTuber Oompaville to finally clear the air about some of his allegations.
Donaldson had previously been the subject of a Coffeezilla video, where the creator delved into his investments.
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In the clip, Coffeezilla claimed to have obtained leaked communications between Donaldson and the founder of SuperVerse.
During his exposé, he said: “We have leaked screenshots showing Mr Beast telling Super’s founder that he can do $100K.
“We have a wallet that both investigations traced to Mr Beast sending $100,000 to the presale wallet. We have the same wallet getting millions of these Super tokens in a period of unlocks which were almost all sold aggressively.”
Now responding to the claims in his chat with Oompaville, Donaldson said: “The gist of this report was, ‘Jimmy is too stupid to make this kind of money therefore it must be insider trading’.
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“It was managed by a fund so I wasn't the one managing the wallet you know, I've never had access to that wallet, I've never done the buying and selling on that wallet.”
Donaldson went on to say that his crypto investments are managed by a professional.
He continued: “The honest truth is like, I make videos, I'm running seven businesses, I got a lot going on and yeah invested in a crypto fund - they invested on my behalf and I've never had access to that wallet.
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“They're the one doing the buying and selling, I mean there are thousands of transactions on there like I don't even have that kind of time.”
During the lengthy conversation, Donaldson also addressed other allegations that have been made against him this year.
One serious accusation was that he was using child slave labor to source the cocoa for his chocolate brand Feastables.
The YouTuber hit back at those claims, adding: ““I've visited the farms, I personally put over a thousand hours of my own time into this.
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“So, the majority of the world's cocoa comes from west Africa. Feastables, early on, we sourced from Peru, which Peru doesn't have ethical problems.
“But after we started getting bigger, all roads lead to you having to source from west Africa because that's just where most of the world's cocoa is grown.”
The YouTuber said that he got in touch with Tony’s Chocolonely, who are the gold standard when it comes to ethical cocoa sourcing.
Donaldson continued: “We actually formed a joint partnership through Tony's Open Chain with Feastables when we were moving over there and this has been a thing well before the controversy, before anyone says, ‘oh it’s only because of controversy’.”
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Oompaville went on to question whether the YouTuber plans to sue his former employee, known online as Dogpack404.
In response, Donaldson said: “Well, there's tons of examples of him intentionally manipulating things to not be true and posting online tons and tons and tons of that.
“He has a basically an hour and 27 minute video and an hour of it is just flat out proving manipulation and lies and caused a lot of harm to my businesses.
“I've literally had people pull out millions of dollars and then tell me it was directly because of
his video.
“I instantly was like, ‘can you send that in writing?’ so you know if I win a case or anything I can
directly point damages.”
What were Dogpack404's allegations against MrBeast?
Uploading a video to YouTube under the name Dogpack404, the former employee made various claims about the MrBeast channel, including allegations that giveaways are fake and contestants aren’t random subscribers.
The former staff member claimed that you won’t appear in a MrBeast video unless you’re ‘family or friends with someone’ that works for Donaldson.
In the video, he accused Donaldson of scripting his videos, claiming that the contestants are not random subscribers and that the YouTuber uses CGI in the background of his videos.