Yachts, Eric Trump and Habibi Doge: Dubai’s crypto party is bigger than ever

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — On a humid Dubai night in early May, I joined guests gathered on the five-storey, 220-foot long Lotus megayacht to celebrate the culmination of TOKEN2049, a major crypto conference held in the glitzy desert emirate I call home. 

The party was hosted by DogeOS, the app developer behind the blockchain for Dogecoin, the shiba inu-faced meme coin that saw a rip-roaring rally in 2021 and briefly turned a few bullish buyers into millionaires. 

It’s part of a long string of high-profile UAE-based industry events and feels like a prescient symbol of the ever-growing exuberance around cryptocurrencies in the Middle East — and globally — right now.

The attendees around me spanned a colorful mix; crypto investors and startup founders, programmers, influencers – and those who, after half an hour of conversation, still wouldn’t really explain what they do.   

“You’ve probably heard of me. Elon retweets me a lot,” one guest said as he introduced himself. I later heard him say the exact same line to three other people. 

One pair of female attendees promoted their Dubai-based startup that designs business plans for corporates and entrepreneurs “by calculating their astrology and birth chart numerology.” They told me that “millionaires often look down on this science … but billionaires love it.” 

The guests hailed from all over the world, sharing a common passion for the future of decentralized digital currency and the revolutionizing of finance. A microcosm of Dubai itself, the boat was a melting pot of nationalities and characters. 

One American passenger wearing a cowboy hat and a ninja turtle backpack hawked a meme token featuring a shiba inu in a cowboy hat called $WIT coin, standing for “what in tarnation.” Between shots of tequila he discussed collaboration with crypto enthusiasts who’d flown in from China. 

The guestlist also featured Olaf Carlson-Wee, the bleach-blonde original contributed to this report.