MrBeast Might Launch a Financial Services App. Is the World’s Biggest YouTuber Diversifying?

Would you spend 100 days locked in a windowless room to get relief on your student loans?

It’s the kind of extreme endurance challenge that MrBeast—also known as Jimmy Donaldson, currently the most popular YouTuber in the world—has built a social media empire around. But the world in which it’s also a serious route to debt relief may be inching closer, following reports that the web content impresario could be gearing up to launch a financial services app called MrBeast Financial.

To be clear, it’s unlikely that MrBeast Financial would incorporate the same type of reality-show-on-steroids gimmickery that has made the MrBeast YouTube channel a hit. Indeed, we know very little about what the personal finance app would look like, period—or whether it will even happen.

But a trademark application for MrBeast Financial that, according to data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, was filed on October 13 under Beast Holdings—an umbrella company owned by the eponymous YouTuber—indicates that the name could be used for a mobile app that might do anything from banking services to short-term cash advances to crypto trading.

Also on that list are investment banking and management services; microfinance lending; insurance; financial advice; financial planning; and financial education. The trademark application makes additional reference to issuing credit and debit cards, as well as the “provision and financial administration of a debit card savings program.”

It’s not clear whether any eventual app would offer all of those services or just a subset of them. A spokesperson for Donaldson declined to comment, and the legal team cited in the trademark application did not respond to a request for details.

In addition to the trademark application, which is public, Business Insider reported in March that it had reviewed a pitch deck indicating that Donaldson had plans to get into financial services. The proposed service was at the time called a slightly different name—“Beast Financial”—but included a similar bevy of services, including student loans, insurance, credit cards, banking services, and financial literacy support.

The pitch deck indicated that MrBeast’s team had “engaged with leading fintech companies to white label their products,” Business Insider reported, “while avoiding regulatory, credit risk, and capital requirements.”

A parallel pitch had to do with creating a new platform for web content creators.

Financial services are a tightly regulated industry, especially compared to the wild west that is online content creation. But legal complexities aside, it wouldn’t be an entirely out-of-left-field move by Donaldson, whose videos tend to be built around eye-popping cash prizes (an exemplary title: “Survive 100 Days in Prison, Win $500,000”) and who’s already stretched his brand across various other verticals, including Feastables chocolate bars, Lunchly packaged meals, and the MrBeast Burger fast food concept.

Business Insider reported last month that the YouTube titan is also thinking about launching a mobile-phone service, seemingly in the same vein as the Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile—although a source close to the company said that there’s no specific timeline for the telecom project, and that it isn’t a top priority.