From crypto trades to classroom dreams: A 23-year-old’s mission to build

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Aditya Sharma is trying an offbeat route to fund a school in a Rajasthan village that shares its name with a blockchain network

By Abhijith S Warrier

Updated - October 17, 2026 at 09:00 AM.

After 33 days on the road, Aditya Sharma hopes to arrive in Solana, Rajasthan, on November 2 with enough raised to bring his school project closer to reality | Photo Credit: iStockphoto

Somewhere in Rajasthan, a village shares its name with a cryptocurrency network, a coincidence that Aditya Sharma thought was reason enough to link the two.

The 23-year-old crypto trader is currently on a nationwide tour, covering 28 States and five union territories in as many days. Living off Starbucks and Third Wave Coffee while traversing the beaches of southern India and the hills of the North-East, Sharma and his friend Ishan Hemnani are on a mission: to get people to trade on his token on Solana, a blockchain platform.

Aditya Sharma (right) with Ishan Hemnani in Chennai

Each trade helps, Sharma said, adding that 4 per cent of the traded amount goes toward building a school in Solana, a remote village nearly 150 km from Jaipur, where children can receive a year of free education.

His target is $200,000. So far, through his token titled Slate (after the blackboard), Sharma claims to have raised just over $40,000. “We hope to get the remaining by the end of the series,” he said.

That deadline isn’t far away. Sharma wants to end his travel series on November 2, at the very place that inspired his campaign, before taking off to Dubai, where he resides. Talk about living a 48-hour life within 24 hours.

It’s an unusual way to finance a school. The campaign’s fortunes depend not only on people willing to support the charitable cause, but also on the highly volatile cryptocurrency market.

Turning views into trades

Sharma’s plan rests on the idea that he can attract attention online. He’s spearheaded a successful crowdfunding campaign before.

Four years ago, the then-Class 12 student asked his Twitter followers to help buy a bike for a delivery agent. This time, he was inspired by Bob Geldof, an Irish musician who helped raise money through a concert for famine relief in Africa in the 1980s.

“I’m not a singer, nor do I do concerts. I know how to travel and how to make content,” said Sharma, who’s been making tech-related videos for nearly a decade now. “Why not just combine them and do this series?”

That’s exactly what he did to gather attention. And crypto offered a way to turn some of that attention into funding. Even before Sharma released his first video, he had raised nearly $7,200 on Slate.

A screenshot of the Slate token | Source: Binance

Slate has about 100 traders currently and a market capitalisation of over $16,000. A token’s market cap is simply the total dollar value of all the tokens currently in circulation.

Hemnani, a childhood friend of Sharma, said the two had been planning the series for a month. They estimated their daily expenses at ₹15,000-20,000, including accommodation and food. They booked much of their travel, in advance, and none of the money raised through Slate is funding the trip.

If Sharma is the brain behind the project, Hemnani, an NIT Jaipur graduate, is the one bringing the videos to life.

“I thought about getting a traditional job, but mechanical engineering just wasn’t for me. I also tried my hand at coding. Video was my calling; it’s my passion,” he said, joining halfway through the conversation with Sharma.

Hemnani works on a three-day buffer. That is, the content shot on Monday will be edited and posted by Thursday

The campaign received an early boost from the crypto community on X, which Sharma credited with helping it raise the first $40,000. But converting a travel-video audience into traders is easier said than done. Fewer than 10 out of every 1,000 viewers go on to trade the token.

“Much of the trading activity,” he said, “comes from people already participating in crypto markets.”

For context, market research and consulting firm IMARC Group estimated India’s cryptocurrency market at around $3.61 billion, projected to nearly quadruple in the next eight years.

Essentially, one may watch Sharma’s video because it features a city they live in or like, or maybe even because they support the idea of building a school. But a trade on Slate happens largely because the investor expects to gain from it. Whether that contributes to Sharma’s campaign is irrelevant to the trade’s motivations.

The campaign struggles if his videos fail to drive trading activity, and Sharma knows that unpredictability. “I want the campaign to work, but if it doesn’t, I’ve a backup plan.”

Finding an audience

The internet has shaped Sharma’s career.

A decade ago, as a teenager, he began making technology videos in Hindi, covering gadgets, unboxing models, and even a few tutorials. Over time, he learned to manage social media accounts for companies. So when he finally enrolled on a biotech course at a Chennai college four years ago, he struggled to find a “work-life” balance.

His tryst with cryptocurrency began around 2020. “I was interested in trading paper,” said Sharma. Much of his knowledge of the asset comes from talking with the crypto community on X, so it makes sense for him to tap into that community to reach his target.

Supposing Sharma raises the intended amount, he’s shortlisted two to three NGOs to implement the projects. None of them is finalised yet, but “once the money comes in, we will have a legal team; we may establish our own firm and set things in motion. We are, however, not restricting ourselves to one plan,” he said.

If he falls short, he said, among the alternatives are grants for developers building on the Solana platform and laptops for people who cannot afford them.

For now, Sharma’s journey is as much about reaching people as raising money. After 33 days on the road, he hopes to arrive in Solana with enough raised to bring the school project closer to reality.

Published on October 17, 2026

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