Nothing reveals a billionaire mindset quite like their spending habits. After all, to earn serious money, you first need to know why you want it.
At first glance, it looks like madness – mushrooms on the orbit, banana art, tigers in Lambos. Crypto’s wealthiest often seem to turn spreadsheets into spectacle – burning millions on stunts that feel more absurd than strategic.
But what if that chaos is the clue? Maybe how they spend their wealth says more about how they earned it – and how they think. And maybe, just maybe, the ability to reprogram markets… comes with the urge to reprogram reality, too.
🛰 $55M to orbit the Earth’s poles (and grow mushrooms)
Chun Wang (F2Pool / Stakefish) funded and boarded a SpaceX mission that orbited both Earth’s poles. The $55M ride included 22 experiments – from X-ray scans in microgravity to cultivating mushrooms in space. Not escapism – expression.
💰 A $2M treasure hunt – buried across the U.S.
Millionaire John Collins-Black turned treasure hunting into performance art. He buried five chests across the U.S., filled with items like a Casascius Bitcoin, Colombian emerald, a rare 2002 Pokémon Shining Charizard card, and a dessert bowl that once belonged to George Washington. The clues are hidden in a book he wrote himself.
Turns out, when you’re filthy rich, you can be the puzzle master, the writer, and the performance artist – all at once.
🍌 The banana that became a $5M media weapon
Justin Sun (Tron) ate Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous banana artwork (originally sold for $120K), turned the act into a viral performance piece, and claimed it cost $5M once licensing and PR were factored in. Absurd? Yes. Strategic? Absolutely!
🦍 The James Bond of crypto… or Ace Ventura?
Djordje Novakovic, who made £30M before 25, keeps an orangutan and a baby tiger at his estate. He calls himself the “James Bond of crypto”, but the vibe is more Web3 Petting Zoo. In a world where brand is everything, even your pets are marketing. So maybe the real utility of NFTs was just preparing us… for this? 🐆
🪐 From Mars to Mercury (Freddie’s, not the planet)
Volodymyr Nosov (WhiteBIT) buys symbols that already live in the hearts of millions. He spent 500 ETH (~$900K) on the Eurovision trophy. Then $11M for Freddie Mercury’s Rolls-Royce. Then a football club.
These aren’t impulse buys. They’re statements – loud, nostalgic, emotionally charged.
So what are we really looking at?
On the surface it’s a total chaos, excess, pure épatage. But dig a little deeper, and it starts to look like something else – a pattern.
These aren’t just purchases. They’re stories, symbols and signals that reflect the same rare thinking that made these people billionaires: a comfort with risk, a hunger for attention, and a willingness to break the script entirely – in business and in life.
So the real question isn’t “why did they buy that?”, it is:
How wild do your ideas need to be… to be worth millions?
*based on insights from this great write-up by TheStreet:
The Wild Roster of Crypto Billionaires
