Researchers have published a new report that alleges MrBeast, YouTube’s biggest star, profited $23 million in crypto “from a multitude of scams, shady deals, and his network.”

However, the heavily-hedged report also shows signs of being less than 100% credible.

Indeed, its closing credits, which thank the pseudonymous researchers who boast fewer than 4,000 followers apiece on X (formerly Twitter) as of publication time, read more like job applications than credible biographies.

Not only this, the lead researcher’s website — a default SquareSpace template barely filled with enough content to function — offers no information about the company, location, or legal details of operations.

On top of this, the document hedges most of its claims about MrBeast’s crypto profitability, often relying on phrases like “we believe,” “a strong indicator,” “they may have had insider information,” and “highly likely to have lost their money.”

MrBeast’s $23 million: More from crypto ‘scams’ or ‘his network’?

Much of the report is concerned with MrBeast’s promotion of crypto tokens that subsequently fell in value. Of course, with millions of token offerings throughout history and a failure rate exceeding 99%, this comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the industry.

It is also not illegal to promote things that decline in value, provided the promoter follows relevant laws.

Read more: Leaked doc allegedly shows how much influencers charge to shill crypto on Twitter

Researchers also cited MrBeast’s endorsements from various social networks, on-chain sleuthing, and leaked screenshots and documents. Some of the evidence is as original as it is questionable.

Cointelegraph amplified the report — although it declined to write an article about the topic — and it topic trended on X on Wednesday, earning over 1 million impressions.

Mixed reactions filled comment sections. Many were unsurprised at the allegation that a social media superstar promoted failed crypto projects. Others asked for confirmation from credible researchers.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post MrBeast $23 million crypto profit report earns 1M impressions appeared first on Protos.

According to TechLead, a.k.a Patrick Shyu, the ‘ex-Google, ex-Meta tech lead’ who started a successful YouTube career after leaving Facebook, he’s been taking down any videos that are critical of his behavior by falsely claiming copyright violations.

Shyu, who once launched a cryptocurrency by lying to users about how it was being bootstrapped, has seen his profile diminish since being exposed by fellow YouTube creator Coffeezilla three years ago.

But making false promises and running off with a significant profit from a crypto project only to never mention it again hasn’t stopped him from constantly posting on YouTube. Indeed, since his failed crypto launch, he’s released a series of pessimistic videos, with titles ranging from Why Coding is Dead to AGI Achieved It’s Over. He’s also posted at least six videos claiming that he’s either quitting or retiring from both tech and YouTube.

He doesn’t appear to have done either.

Not the first time

While this is absolutely the first time that TechLead has publicly admitted to abusing the DMCA system, it isn’t the first time he’s tried to have well-known video exposés taken down. He even stated in a now-deleted video that he, “tends to copyright strike down any exposé videos” because he wants to know who is behind them.

Years ago, after Coffeezilla covered TechLead’s Million Token scam, TechLead called Coffeezilla racist, attempted to dox him, and sent out copyright takedown claims to other creators covering the topic.

Read more: Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong baits media with dramatic YouTube ‘quit’

YouTube channel getting rekt

Though TechLead has deleted the video in which he admitted to abusing the DMCA copyright takedown system, that isn’t the only video he’s deleted. According to the social analytics website SocialBlade, TechLead has deleted dozens of videos over the past few days, losing millions and millions of views seemingly overnight. This has taken his channel from a B- rating to a D- rating.

Protos asked YouTube how it intends to respond to false DMCA takedown claims and was told that “False claims and misuse of the removal request webform when someone submits a copyright removal request can result in the suspension of an account or other legal consequences.” It’s unclear if YouTube will suspend or take legal action against TechLead.

It’s worth pointing out that TechLead’s Million Token is down over 99% from all-time highs reached in July of 2021.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post TechLead has been taking down critical videos appeared first on Protos.

Ben Armstrong, formerly BitBoy, has once again proven that a little manufactured drama goes a long way after a video in which he simultaneously claims that he’s leaving crypto YouTube — while also confirming that he’ll continue to upload videos — racked up nearly 80,000 views in a single day.

In the recently uploaded clip, titled ‘I’m Retiring From Crypto YouTube,’ Armstrong claims that he’s probably not going to be doing a crypto livestream anymore. The statement, of course, comes with several caveats.

For starters, given his use of the word ‘probably,’ there’s a chance that he’ll return to do livestreams sometime in the future. But even if he doesn’t, the title of the video is more than a little misleading given that he also clarifies that he’d still be uploading to his YouTube channel. Indeed, toward the end he specifies that he’ll “still have three videos a day, more videos coming.”

During the video, Armstrong appears to be holding back tears as he describes how he’s “paying lawyers $100,000 a month” and that the show costs “$25,000 a week” to produce. It’s unclear if those numbers are accurate, but based on his most recent uploads which take place in a much smaller, poorly lit, closet-like space, his budget has been cut back drastically.

Read more: BitBoy tags wife and mistress in divorce tweet

More of the same from BitBoy

This isn’t the first time Armstrong has ramped up the on-camera drama.

The attention-hungry YouTuber recorded himself last year complaining about being unable to get back the Lamborghini that had been purchased for the company he helped start (but was later fired from). He received $80,000 worth of cryptocurrency donations to pursue a case against the firm.

Later in the year, after a very public affair and divorce, Armstrong took to live-streaming again, this time with his mistress hidden in the back of an SUV, carrying a handgun, and on his way to confront a business associate. He was later arrested and spent the night in county jail.

The social media influencer also bought into a token of his own last year — a coin which has seen its value, trade volume, and interest plummet since it was created.

“You know,” Armstrong says at the end of his most recent video, “the show is really all I have now. I’ve lost everything.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel. 

The post Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong baits media with dramatic YouTube ‘quit’ appeared first on Protos.

A crypto YouTuber has been accused by a Minnesota electricity supplier of attempting to bribe its employees so he could upgrade a bitcoin mine that had already stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electricity.

As reported by the Wadena Pioneer Journal, the lawsuit submitted on November 21 accuses Minnesota residents Ryan Jaenicke and his former girlfriend Tina Fehlhaber of a “greed-fuelled conspiracy” that saw them steal power from North Star Electric Cooperative to power a bitcoin mine in Roosevelt.

In June last year, North Star noticed increased electricity use on an old line that once powered a property in Roosevelt. The house’s electricity supply was reportedly disconnected in 2018 after the previous owners left. 

The property was owned by TiMar, a company owned by Fehlhaber and affiliated with Jaenicke, and had not applied for North Star electricity. 

During a subsequent investigation, North Star discovered an old meter box that had been tampered with to redistribute electricity from the North Star network to two electrical transformers and the Roosevelt property.

North Star, working with law enforcement, was able to observe an estimated 26 crypto-mining units at the property. However, when police returned with a search warrant, the mining devices were gone. Witnesses reportedly saw the pair remove the devices from the property.

YouTuber turned to bribery to upgrade mine

Jaenicke runs a YouTube channel called ‘Degenerate Income’ where he reportedly shows viewers different ways to earn a passive income through “degenerate plays in the decentralized finance space.” 

In several transcribed Facebook messages shared in the lawsuit, Jaenicke is shown attempting to bribe a North Star employee. He allegedly offers $2,000 in cash to upgrade a fuse box in secret, however, the employee refuses, saying “I can’t risk my career.” Jaenicke offers a further $5,000 but is rejected again and told he’s “got the wrong guy.”

North Star is seeking damages and to retrieve any profits that the pair may have made using the stolen power. The company added that the defendants should follow Jaenicke’s own published advice and “be a man” and “own up to your mistakes.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post YouTuber accused of bribing power worker to upgrade bitcoin mine appeared first on Protos.

Crypto scammers took over the YouTube account of a deceased esports player and made $3,000 from unsuspecting subscribers, reports BBC.

Byron Bernstein (aka Reckful) committed suicide in December 2020. On Monday, the 310,000 subscribers his channel still had were met with a Bitcoin giveaway scam sporting Elon Musk’s face and stolen video content.

Rebranded as the official Tesla channel, it reportedly promised to double Bitcoin sent to a wallet address.

News of the Reckful channel hack was first shared on Reddit with fans appalled by the scammers’ attempts to profit from a dead content creator.

“It takes a special type of scum to do something like this,” said a Reddit user (via BBC).

One of Bernstein’s editors managed to regain control of the account and advised visitors to the YouTube profile to not click any links.

Scammers infiltrating YouTube channels has become more frequent of late, notes the BBC. A page’s banner, profile image, and display name get switched to Tesla branding often — when searching for the electronic vehicle maker on YouTube, several fakes appear using the “Tesla [Live]” display name.

We spoke to a YouTube Bitcoin scammer

Bitcoin giveaway scams have proliferated on social media with bad actors pretending to be celebrities promising to double any crypto sent to their wallets.

A similar scam stream that had been live for more than six hours at press time used the faces of Ark Invest’s Cathy Wood, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Block’s Jack Dorsey — all big names in the crypto space.

A looped recording of an Ark Invest discussion between Musk, Wood, Dorsey, and a moderator plays while information on-screen attempts to convince viewers into offering up their crypto.

Text alongside the repurposed content promises that for a contribution of 1 and 500 ETH and 0.1 BTC and 250 BTC, double the amount will be returned.

Read more: Elon Musk isn’t giving away Bitcoin! ‘Motherload’ scam earned $2M last week

The website purportedly logs contributions and the doubled figure paid back. However, a check of the scammer’s wallet address revealed no transactions and zero balance, which didn’t corroborate their alleged 5,000 BTC giveaway stash.

The website featured a live chat box in which Protos was able to communicate with the scammer, who claimed to be a Tesla representative.

When Protos asked why the wallet address showed no activity, we were told “it doesn’t work like you think,” (sic).

When pushed to provide proof of the giveaway, they offered up this Bitcoin wallet address that has made hundreds of thousands of transactions worth around $20 million. The supplied address currently holds more than $52 million worth of BTC.

“Can you show me the correct address to prove liquidity?” Protos asked.

“From this purse are automatically sent to you, you need to send to the purse that is listed on our site,” they responded.

The scammer then claimed to be operating 10 Bitcoin wallet addresses. When Protos asked for proof, the representative left the chat. 

Protos was unable to confirm the second wallet’s ownership and was likely an attempt by the scammer to feign trust in the scam’s liquidity.

Last year, Protos tracked a con dubbed the Motherload which had received more than $10 million in Bitcoin contributions through similar Tesla trickery.

Today, social media firms are playing whack-a-mole with giveaway scams. YouTube told the BBC that it had removed 12 channels for violating terms of service regarding scams.

The platform said that between January and March 2020 it removed 2.2 million videos and 1.7 million accounts for flouting spam and scam rules.

Follow us on Twitter for more informed news.

Out now: the first four episodes of our ongoing investigative podcast series Innovated: Blockchain City.

The post Bitcoin doubling scam seizes dead streamer’s YouTube channel appeared first on Protos.

Blockchain brands are flexing finances to lure top execs from tech giants like Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon to build the crypto-centric internet ecosystem known as “web3,” reports CNBC.

Ambitious tech folk are hoovering up massive salaries and mouth-watering share packages offered by crypto companies like Polygon, Circle, and Coinbase.

Coinbase, the top US crypto exchange, has offered software engineering roles that earn up to $900,000 per year, according to social network Blind.

“As more crypto and web3 companies emerge, we expect the market for tech talent across all levels to become even more competitive,” said James Hallahan, director of UK and Ireland for Hays’ tech division (via CNBC).

The outlet noted that blockchain startups raised more than $25 billion in venture capital in 2021, giving them plenty of cash to attract top talent.

Talent follows (web3) innovation

Checkbooks aside, crypto companies are relying on targets being unable to resist web3’s allure.

The term is mostly amorphous, but it generally relates to the budding blockchain-powered tech stack envisioned to one day democratize our internet experience away from legacy tech corporations.

“Naturally, people will want to work on what they view as the most exciting and innovative developments in the technology space, and currently, that is crypto and web3,” said payroll software firm Deel’s chief Alex Bouaziz.

“Many are seeing it as the future of the tech industry, in the same way that Facebook and Amazon were attractive in the past.”

Certainly, this looks to be the case. Established tech giants are indeed haemorrhaging top talent to their blockchain rivals.

Last month, Novi’s chief marketing officer (Facebook’s crypto and payments unit) Sherice Torres was poached by payments portal Circle. A move likely in part inspired by Diem’s untimely demise.

Circle is currently looking to public via a SPAC deal that will see it reportedly valued at $9 billion.

Also in January, Amazon’s general manager of edge services, Pravjit Tiwana, joined Winklevoss-backed crypto exchange Gemini as its new chief technology officer.

Read more: [Cancel culture or DAOism? Web3 hits fever pitch over religious tweets]

Not to mention Ryan Wyatt, YouTube’s senior managing director and global head of gaming who left to head up a new studio at Ethereum scaling solution Polygon.

Speaking about the new web3 opportunity, Wyatt told CNBC:

“When I started at YouTube Gaming almost eight years ago, I was the first person there. We didn’t have a team. People were really starting to show interest in gaming video.”

“I look at this opportunity very much the same way.”

Looking for bite-sized news? We’re on Twitter.

The post Web3 crypto startups poach top execs from Facebook, YouTube, Amazon appeared first on Protos.

Social media influencer Ice Poseidon says he’s looking out for himself and won’t hand back $500,000 worth of crypto he scammed from fans in an audacious rugpull scheme.

Poseidon — real name Paul Denino — leveraged YouTube, Telegram, and Discord accounts to convince a portion of his 740,000 followers to sink money into a crypto token he created called CxCoin, launched last July.

“Cxcoin is a community-based and community-driven token, guaranteeing complete transparency through every milestone of the project,” reads the project’s website.

It marketed itself with crypto buzzwords, describing CxCoin as a “deflationary” and “buyback orientated DeFi token.” The project pledged to use fees generated to buy the token on exchange, thereby propping up its price.

“Our responsibility is to create a fast, secure and easy way for streamers to receive crypto donations from their viewers. Whether you want to donate CxCoin, BNB or any other cryptocurrency, we are here to help you.”

• Ice Poseidon runs a gaming-focused YouTube channel with over 740,000 subscribers. 
• The popularity of his YouTube and Twitch channels peaked in 2017 when he mostly engaged in what he called “lifestreaming.”
• According to Rolling Stone, Ice Poseidon expected to earn annual income “in the low six figures” from ads, viewer donations, and sponsorships from gaming orgs like Team NRG.

But despite assuring investors the token was a “long-term project” and that funds were “locked up” and protected from rug pulls, he actually has extracted more than half a million dollars from the supply, according to YouTube investigator Coffeezilla.

Denino took the funds from pre-sale and marketing wallets, as well as the token’s liquidity pool (the address containing the bulk of the supply intended support its development).

The influencer initially said he’d return a small fraction of the money, but when YouTube investigator Coffeezilla publicly confronted Denino about the bulk last week, he said he would “look out for himself and not do that.”

Denino curiously bought a Tesla not long after launching CxCoin. More than $800,000 worth of the token was traded on its first day.

When formally informed that Coffeezilla would publish a video detailing his scam, he backed down and said he’d return $155,000. But as of recently he’d only returned $40,000 worth of tokens to the liquidity pool.

Ice Poseidon scrubs online footprint after crypto rugpull

According to Coffeezilla, Poseidon/Denino siphoned $200,000 worth of CxCoin from one of the token’s pre-sale wallets.

He later took $250,000 from the marketing wallet and admitted taking another $290,000 from his community’s liquidity pool when he abandoned the project.

In total, he worked on CxCoin for two weeks with constant promises about its “long-term” viability, then conveniently claimed that the project had suddenly died of its own accord.

Attempts to view Ice Poseidon’s official website now return a 404 error, classic crypto rugpull behavior. He’s also been deleting many posts about CxCoin from his social media channels.

Read more: [‘A slow rug pull’: Traders reject play-to-earn crypto shilled by Ice Cube]

Coffeezilla recommended that victims of the CxCoin scam file a report with the FBI’s Federal Crime Complaint Center. Complaints should include the suspect’s real name.

Victims can also file a whistleblower report with the SEC and a fraud complaint with the FTC.

If victims file enough complaints, regulators might find the case easy to prosecute. After all, Ice Poseidon has more-or-less admitted to stealing money from his fans, no doubt making the case straight-forward.

Follow us on Twitter for more informed crypto news.

The post YouTuber rugpulls fans for $500K in crypto, token pumps 300% anyway appeared first on Protos.