About Us

We build the real-world layer for people who move.

Crays connects living, working, travel and community into one recognizable system for creators, founders, business travelers and global citizens who need freedom without losing structure.

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Forest City waterfront and towers at sunset

The Idea

Freedom only works when the basics are already handled.

People want flexible lives, companies need better work models, and cities need places where mobile people can actually belong. Crays answers that with branded living spaces, work-ready environments, hosted community moments and digital access that connects the journey.

Forest City residences beside the shoreline

Real places first. Then the digital layer makes the journey easier to enter, repeat and recognize.

Founder Prologue

My Vision & Mission Statement for Crays

Alright, before you dive deep into all this — let me introduce myself real quick and be straight with you about why I am doing this whole thing and how it even came to be.

So yeah, what actually got me here?

I am German, but I have lived in Spain for over 20 years. Now I live between Dubai, Palma, Medellín and LA. On top of that, for more than two decades I spent more than 250 days a year traveling around the world. That kind of life changes you. It blows your perspective wide open.

Work-wise, I got to build some pretty sick brands along the way, from lifestyle names like Ed Hardy to tech plays like brands4friends. And crypto? I have been deep in it for 15 years. There are not many people out there who have gone as far down that rabbit hole as I have.

But honestly, the most incredible thing through all of this has been the people I have met. Literally thousands of amazing humans with wild stories and experiences. That part never gets old.

There was also the other side of it: the lonely hotel room nights, always wondering how to make traveling feel less isolating. Wishing I knew who was where, who was vibing with what, and how to connect with the right people in the right place at the right time.

Why Crays exists

That is where the idea was born, slowly, over years. An idea about how to make the world a little better, built from everything I know, everything I have lived, and what I genuinely want to give back.

As a traveler, the missing piece became clear step by step: real connections, seamless living, and hospitality spaces that truly bring people together.

Two big moments also shaped who I am personally: the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, and especially the Spanish real estate crash from 2007 to 2013, alongside what happened in Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. Watching people in my circle get wrecked by that hit different. It made me obsessed with one question: what actually is money?

That obsession led me to crypto when it was still shady and underground, and then to Web3. The core question was always: what is money, really? And tied to that, how do you build wealth when you were not born into it?

Wealth creation for the next generation

Later, that question evolved into something bigger: wealth creation for the next generation. That is what I have to offer from everything I have learned. For young people today, moving up in society is almost impossible. Buying property, saving enough to invest, and staying ahead of inflation has become brutally hard. I believe the system made it that way, and that is what Crays pushes back against. That is also why I love Bitcoin's deflationary model.

Crays is going after that problem head-on. Think old-school cooperatives: people coming together for the collective good, building something real together, and having a damn good time doing it.

Through all my travels, I have always been chasing one thing: a home for a global community of like-minded people. It does not matter where you are from, what you look like, or what religion you practice. Your values are your passport. The true global citizen is defined not by country, but by what they stand for.

And yes, a real community is also willing to say, this is not for you, to people who will not engage with those values.

Privacy, freedom, autonomy

Privacy, freedom of expression, and personal autonomy are non-negotiable at Crays. No privacy, no democracy. The world is sliding toward surveillance and control, turbo-charged by technology. Crays is being built in direct opposition to that: technologically, structurally, and culturally.

But why am I doing all this? Why take on the stress of running a non-profit?

I do not want a salary. But I have got to eat, so 0.25% of every transaction in the Crays global ecosystem flows into a wallet tied to me personally. That is my retirement. I am president of the Association for life.

Since I do not have heirs, when I am gone, everything passes into a foundation, so this mission and this dream keep going with the community and the Association no matter what.

Work, Live & Play — one big global community.

Crays is for people. It is for life, digital and IRL. A physical and digital ecosystem where global citizens find home, surrounded by people they actually love.

No more work life versus personal life. That line is gone. We are human beings. We want to live. We want to build something incredible together.

I wish all of us a perfect time together. Do not predict the future. Let us go out and build it together.

— Thorben Biesenbach

What We Believe

Three shifts define the world Crays is built for.

The marina hotel and pool in Forest City

Living becomes a lifestyle brand

Homes, hotels, workspaces and communities should work together instead of feeling fragmented.

Digital nomads are no longer a niche

Location-independent work moved into the mainstream, and the infrastructure has to catch up.

Remote work changes real estate

Work is more flexible, but people still need places to focus, meet, recover and build trust.

Vision

A global village made of real rooms, not just online networks.

Crays is designed as a modern urban lifestyle layer: places to call home, spaces to work from, local hospitality, events, brand partners and digital access in one recognizable system.