A private polar spaceflight expedition has been purchased by a crypto magnate through SpaceX.

• On Monday, SpaceX announced that an undisclosed amount of cryptocurrency speculator Chun Wang purchased a multi-day flight.
• Wang is heading a team of four on the first crewed spaceflight in polar orbit, flying over the Earth from start to finish.
• SpaceX plans to launch Fram2 near the end of this year.

Private polar expeditions are reaching a new level: Space.

On Monday, SpaceX announced that Chun Wang, a cryptocurrency speculator, purchased a multi-day flight for an undisclosed amount, with the intention of leading the first crewed space mission in polar orbit, flying end-to-end over the Earth.

An ode to the 19th-century polar expedition ship Fram, "Fram2" is set to launch near the end of this year. It will fly on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and use its thrice-flown Dragon capsule named Endurance, a fitting coincidence as a NASA crew three years ago named the spacecraft after explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's famed ship.

Jannicke Mikkelsen, Eric Philips, and Rabea Rogge, all specialists in the Arctic, were invited by Wang to join him on his mission.

From a young age, I've been fascinated by space, and now, for the first time, a private individual can plan and design their own unique mission, as Wang shared with CNBC.

Wang, a 42-year-old man, was born in Tianjin, China, but now resides in Malta, where he became a citizen last year. Wang stated that he met his fellow crew members while living in Svalbard, a far north Norwegian archipelago, and describes himself as "nomadic," having visited over 100 countries in the past few years.

Although the cost of human spaceflight has decreased, making it accessible to more governments, a multi-day mission remains exclusive to ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Although SpaceX publicly discloses the cost of launching satellites, the company does not advertise the price of its crewed missions. According to NASA, a single seat on Dragon costs about $55 million, meaning a crewed mission would cost at least $200 million.

Wang affirmed that he funded the mission, but refused to disclose the amount.

Wang has mostly kept a low profile and his unspecified net worth is tied to work mining cryptocurrency, as he frequently showcases his travels on social media.

Wang claims to have mined 7,700 bitcoin over two years, which is worth approximately $450 million at current prices. Additionally, he states that he was the co-founder of F2Pool, a decentralized collective that has mined over 1.3 million bitcoin in the past 11 years, worth over $76 billion in today's dollars.

Wang's neighbor in Longyearbyen, Mikkelsen, was shocked when she went from friend to future astronaut.

Mikkelsen told CNBC that he didn't believe Chun when he texted him randomly.

The Fram2 mission proposal by Wang was successful after the Inspiration4 flight in 2021.

The Fram2 crew will spend three to five days in orbit, conducting research on the upper atmosphere, including studying "fragments in the aurora" above Earth, as well as analyzing the effects of spaceflight on the human body.

This week, SpaceX began training the crew members who had previously undergone their own "extreme environment" training in Alaska a month ago. Mikkelsen stated that she aims to create an immersive production with the documentary, allowing viewers to experience the flight as if they were in Dragon.

Wang stated that the goal is to expand the door and create a personal space mission for everyone.