We were 33,000 feet over the Indian Ocean when “George from Georgia” marched through the plane.
He carried a large speaker on his shoulder and a microphone that he handed out to willing crooners. Sanjay Saini, who says on LinkedIn that he was a “Forbes web3 content creator of the year,” took the mic.
“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone,” he belted, standing on an aisle seat.
Revellers joined him in his strained rendition of Taylor Swift’s hit single “Love Story.”
“It’s a love story. Baby, just say yes,” they sang, dissolving into cheers as Saini finished.
The seatbelt signs were on. No one seemed to care.
“This is stupid,” a passenger told me about the flight. “It’s the most fun stupid thing I’ve done in a while.”
And, for more than 10 hours, I had a front row seat to the stupidity.
From Dubai to Singapore
Last Sunday, almost 270 investors, founders, and influencers crowded onto a plane from Dubai to Singapore to attend Token2049, one of crypto’s largest conferences.
The flight was clearly a publicity stunt for Redacted, a startup that was preparing to launch a cryptocurrency but whose business model few passengers could clearly describe. The firm had cobbled together $700,000 from sponsors to pay for the charter, a pubic relations rep told me.
I was invited to hop aboard and promised up to $5,000 in crypto as well as an all-expenses-paid stay in a hotel in Singapore.
I had my reservations. Journalists don’t accept gifts, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be trapped with the “who’s who” of crypto tens of thousands of feet above the Indian Ocean.
But, my job is to write about crypto, and nothing seemed more crypto than a crypto party jet. So, I told the publicist to keep the gifts. I did, however, want a seat on that plane.
‘I die for the content, brother.’
Professor Crypto
When the Qatar Airways flight took off from Dubai in the early afternoon, Professor Crypto, an influencer who also goes by Nicky, sat in the first row in business class.
During the flight, he held court in his spacious window seat, swigged champagne, and interviewed passengers for his YouTube channel, where he has more than 1.3 million subscribers.
Through more than 900 videos, he’s promoted a cryptocurrency for literally every letter of the alphabet, including Puss Token, BoozeMoon, and Jizzlord Coin. One month ago, he even boosted a project called VaporFund.
“I die for the content, brother,” he told me at a party before the flight.
Diamonds and gold
Professor Crypto wore at least four diamond-encrusted bands, three diamond-encrusted rings, one gold watch, and a diamond-encrusted necklace. Or at least they looked like diamonds.
I asked him how much his rings cost. “That’s a secret, my man,” he demurred. When pressed, he said, “A lot.”
Three rows back sat Satoshi Stacker, another influencer who has more than 300,000 subscribers on YouTube.
His first name is Chris, and he told me there were a couple of people on the flight who had previously scammed him out of approximately $40,000. He wouldn’t say who.
Mario Nawfal, a social media star on X who has interviewed Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was also in business class. He slept through most of the plane ride.
In Singapore, Nawfal would later host a mobbed penthouse party. Police shut it down, conducted drug tests, and threatened anyone who didn’t leave with six-figure fines, he said in an email to attendees.
It was only after we reached cruising altitude that the party really started.
Drink cart
While business class was reserved for Shark Tank-style pitching sessions and slumbering influencers, economy was where the action was.
“This is wild,” exclaimed one passenger. “They just poured shots of whiskey.”
The passengers crowded the flight attendants for drinks. Sometimes, the attendants valiantly tried to push a cart down the aisles. One told me that she had no idea how chaotic the flight would be before she started work.
“WHISKEY, WHISKEY,” chanted the passengers.
There was also a 17-year-old on board. He didn’t want to talk about the mile-high party. “I don’t do anything,” he said, innocently. “I’m just enjoying the flight and singing along.”
Despite numerous instances of turbulence and brief periods where flight attendants corralled passengers to their seats, the party would not stop.
‘We should pick up CZ from prison!’
Anon passenger
A throng intensified in the middle of the plane, and I followed the noise. I was greeted with the perfume of body odour mixed with the candy-sweet smell of vape smoke.
One man struggled through the crowd carrying a tray of whiskey cokes.
“We should pick up CZ from prison,” yelled another, referring to Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance sentenced to four months in a correctional facility for violating US banking law.
Flu is barefoot
There are more suits in crypto than a decade ago, especially as firms like BlackRock commit more resources to the industry. But, if this flight was any indication, crypto still has its fair share of unabashed hype.
In the back of the plane, where things were quieter, I chatted with James Griffin, whose online moniker is “Flu.”
He was barefoot. “I literally do this just to say, ‘My socks were off the whole fucking flight,’” he told me.
I asked him if he knew what Redacted, the company organising the flight, actually does. The crypto firm, which has raised $10 million and was most recently valued at $70 million, billed itself as an “entertainment datasphere.”
“I don’t know, but it’s backed by cool people,” he said.
Later on the flight, I asked Jonathan Fiorenza, another crypto influencer, if he knew what the company was building.
“Uh… no,” he responded. “Did I invest? Yes.”
Kumar, the CEO of Redacted, told me that his company was akin to a “web3 Y Combinator,” in reference to the famed startup incubator in Silicon Valley.
Underneath Redacted’s corporate umbrella were a host of crypto projects, including a trading bot, an NFT aggregation platform, and NFT collection.
But, I thought, Kumar seemed less interested in building a product than constructing a narrative of excess.
“This is an event that people are not going to forget,” he said, “no matter what.”
As we approached Singapore, the flight attendants took charge and herded us back to their seats.
I asked one employee how she was doing. “I’m excited we’re landing soon,” she said.
Around 3 a.m., we exited the plane. The soles of my shoes were sticky, and the inside of the jet looked like the aftermath of a college frat party.
In the terminal, I briefly said goodbye to Professor Crypto. He was accused the next day on X of artificially inflating his subscriber base on YouTube. Other commentators alleged that his diamond rings were fake.
He denied allegations of social media manipulation to me and didn’t respond when I asked if his rings were real.
After the flight landed, passengers posted videos of the most raucous moments to social media. Most people I spoke to at Token2049, the crypto conference, had caught wind of the “first-ever sky networking event.”
Redacted’s publicist later told me the whole bonanza was a “publicity stunt.” Maybe it worked.
“100% pump my presale tokens please!” commented someone on Kumar’s X account after the flight.
“Yes ser,” responded Kumar. “Doing all in our power to.”
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.