Morning Minute: Tom Lee Backs Mr. Beast with $200M

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are red and cooling off; BTC at $95,400
• Tom Lee’s BMNR invests $200M in equity into Mr. Beast’s platform
• X cracks down on InfoFi, KAITO falls 20%
• Saturn announced 11% yield on its USDat stablecoin via Strategy’s STRC
• GAS token soars 700% to $44M as trenches show strong signs of life

💰 BitMine Backs MrBeast’s Financial Platform With $200M Investment

A surprising new investment juxtaposes the face of Ethereum with the face of all content.

📌 What Happened

BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) announced a $200M investment into the financial platform initiative led by YouTube creator MrBeast.

BitMine is backing the platform’s broader vision to offer on-chain financial products, including DeFi integrations tied to BitMine’s Ethereum treasury and MrBeast’s massive user base (200M+ subscribers).

Key data points:

• BitMine’s treasury already holds 4.16M ETH, well on his way to owning 5% of the ETH supply and by far the largest ETH DAT
• The $200M commitment marks one of the largest publicly disclosed investments by a listed crypto firm into a consumer fintech/creator-economy project ever
• MrBeast’s platform aims to blend traditional financial tooling with crypto rails, leveraging BitMine’s infrastructure and liquidity.

The investment news coincided with broader momentum for BitMine’s public narrative in 2026, fueled by ETH’s +12% start to the year.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, said the firm would explore ways to “incorporate DeFi into our upcoming financial services platform”

🧠 Why It Matters

This investment is notable for a few reasons.

First, this is the first time we’ve seen a crypto DAT use its capital for a meaningful investment outside of crypto tokens.

Most DATs simply raise capital and buy their respective token (i.e. BMNR and ETH), and if holders are lucky, the team will squeak out some additional ROI via yield.

Tom and team are going a different route by using growth capital to make “moonshot” bets. And that makes BMNR a much more interesting bet than some other DATs out there (you get the ETH upside + the moonshot upside).

This is also meaningful for potential mainstream adoption.

MrBeast’s platform is huge and his new finance-focused app is a perfect opportunity to get crypto finance into retail.

Overall this feels like a major statement from Tom Lee—BMNR is going on offense, not just playing defense in 2026.

Now we will see if anyone chooses to follow suit…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

A few headlines that stood out:

• Crypto majors are red; BTC -1% at $95,400; ETH -1% at $3,310, SOL -1% at $144; XRP -2% to $2.06
• DASH (+6%), SKY (+4%) and CHZ (+4%) led top movers
• The Bank of America’s CEO said interest-bearing stablecoins could shift up to $6T out of bank deposits, framing part of the Senate bill debate.
• The Manhattan DA urged stronger crypto enforcement laws, pushing for harsher penalties for scams targeting vulnerable populations
• Two solo Bitcoin miners each won nearly $300,000 in rare block rewards amid shifting mining dynamics
• Ripple secured a $150M financing deal with LMAX Group to accelerate RLUSD adoption in institutional trading desks
• Interactive Brokers announced 24/7 account funding powered by USDC

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

• The BTC ETFs saw $100M in net inflows on Thursday; ETH ETFs saw $164M in net inflows
• BMNR announced a $200M investment in YouTuber MrBeast’s financial platform venture

In Memes / Onchain Movers

• Meme majors were red again; Doge -4%, Shiba -2%, PEPE -1%, TRUMP -1%, Bonk +1%, Pengu -4%, SPX -5%, WIF -3% and Fartcoin -3%
• GAS soared 700% to $42M leading all movers; TERRA +51x to $4M, Ralph +400% to $30M and SOL (+70%) to $20M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Kaito’s token fell sharply on Thursday after Nikita Bier rolled out a new policy cutting off API access to InfoFi projects
• Ondo announced a partnership with Felix for tokenized stocks and ETFs on Hyperliquid along with borrowing
• Saturn announced $800k funding from Yzi Labs, offering 11% yield on its USDat stablecoin via STRC
• Football dot Fun’s FUN token is holding at $112M fdv one day after TGE
• FOGO is trading at $415M fdv in its first day post TGE

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were very green on the day; Punks +1% at 29.2 ETH, Pudgy +6% at 5.43 ETH, and BAYC +10% at 6.5 ETH; Hypurr -1% 505 HYPE
• Creepz (+18%) led notable top movers
• Pudgy Penguins announced a collab with Manchester City