YouTube Champ 2025

Overview

Mesmerism runs YouTube Champ every year, an event that gathers Mongolia's best YouTubers and puts them through a series of challenges to crown the top creator of the year. Past editions selected contestants internally. For 2025, they wanted the audience to decide.

The idea: fans vote for who they want to see compete. To vote, you buy coins with real money. Each week, the top 4 vote-getters earn a spot in the YouTube Champ competition. Four weeks, four rounds, 16 contenders.

Mesmerism's official explainer: how the voting platform and YouTube Champ 2025 worked

Problem

The previous format felt closed off. Audiences watched but had no stake in who competed. Mesmerism wanted to change that dynamic: give fans real ownership over the lineup, and use that participation to fund the prize pool directly.

Three things had to work:

The platform had to be simple enough to use in under a minute: buy coins, pick a creator, vote
The coin economy needed to feel fair and transparent. Users needed to trust their money was going somewhere real
The design had to carry the energy of the event. This wasn't a utility app, it was part of the show

Design

Homepage

The landing page needed to communicate everything at once: who the contenders are, what the stakes are, and how to participate. Leaderboard rankings are front and center, with the current vote counts visible without logging in.

Desktop homepage: live rankings, contender cards, and entry into the voting flow

Mobile homepage, same hierarchy, optimized for one-handed browsing

YouTube Champ 2025 mobile homepage — Mobile layout: contender rankings and vote counts at a glance

UI Components

UI component library — Component library: buttons, cards, coin inputs, and vote states used across the platform

Access to voting required an account. This kept votes legitimate and tied coin purchases to real users. The login screen was kept minimal to reduce drop-off at the gate.

Creator Detail

Each YouTuber had a dedicated page showing their stats, vote count, and a direct path to support them. This was the moment a fan decided to commit.

Buy Coin

Coins were purchased with real money. This was the most critical screen to get right. Pricing tiers were clearly laid out, the payment path was short, and the value exchange was made explicit: coins go directly to the prize pool.

Vote

Once a user had coins, voting was a single tap. The confirmation state gave immediate feedback: your coins are in, your creator is getting the support.

Voting screen: coin balance, creator selection, and one-tap vote

Vote success screen — Vote success state: confirmation that the vote was counted and coins were spent

What Actually Happened

Each week the prize pool grew as fans bought coins to vote for their favourite creators. Four weeks, four rounds, 16 spots filled.

Week 1 contenders — Week 1: the first four contenders selected by fan vote

Week 2 contenders — Week 2: four more contenders earn their spot

Week 3 contenders — Week 3: the lineup grows as the prize pool climbs

Week 4 contenders — Week 4: the final four round out the 16 contenders

All 16 contenders and final prize pool — All 16 contenders selected, and the final prize pool raised by the audience

Watch the full event

Outcome

In four weeks, the platform registered over 50,000 users and raised ₮47,886,500 for the prize pool, entirely through audience coin purchases. Sixteen contenders were selected, each earning their spot through fan votes. The format turned a passive audience into active participants with real stakes in the competition.

50,000+ Users

Registered on the platform across four weeks of voting

₮47,886,500 Raised

Prize pool funded entirely by audience coin purchases in 4 weeks

16 Contenders

Selected through fan votes, one per week across four voting rounds