During Paris Blockchain Week, CryptoPotato had the chance to interview Helen Hai – the president of Bifinity, Head of Binance Charity Foundation, Head of NFT & Fan Token, and Goodwill Ambassador. Hai talked about how blockchain can revolutionize charity donations, NFTs can help artists in less fortunate states, and a lot more.
From London to Africa to Binance
During the Paris Blockchain Week Summit (PBW) that transpired earlier in April, Helen Hai revealed in a special interview with CryptoPotato her journey that started in China and led her to the crypto giant Binance.
It started with a move to London, a reputable degree and a job at a high-end company, and all that before she turned 30. After doing so, she moved to Africa “looking for a purpose,” set up a factory creating 4,000 jobs, helped in the establishment of industrial parks, and advised several African heads of state.
This led to being appointed as the Goodwill Ambassador and was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a young global leader. Her journey up until that point ultimately led her to tackle the growing issues of financial inequality – the fact that 1% of the population owns 90% or more of the global wealth.
As such, she was introduced to the world of cryptocurrency, and she met Binance’s CEO – Changpeng Zhao (CZ). Because of her background, she was instituted as the Head of the company’s charity department, which she thinks has the power to revolutionize the process through the employment of blockchain.
She told us that the current donation system is quite inefficient as only 25% of the donated funds actually make it to the person/organization in need.
“There’s a lot of administration costs right now in donations. This is why blockchain technology really offers value. It has a lot of value cases because everything’s transparent, checkable.”
Her first job at Binance was to ensure that 100% of the donated funds actually end up in those in need. Hai also noted that the company does not charge any fees, and there are no administration costs. This is because there’s no need for auditors since everything is transparent on the blockchain.
Introducing Binance NFT Marketplace
In the following few years, Hai’s role in Binance only expanded. Aside from being the President of Bifinity – a regulated fiat-to-crypto service provider launched by the company earlier this year – she decided to embark on a journey in the rapidly-growing industry of non-fungible tokens.
Hai described that she went to CZ with the idea of building an NFT marketplace for the company, he approved, and the platform was live within three months only. Hai believes that NFTs are a way to empower artists who would otherwise have to jump through hoops and hurdles to receive serious exposure to their work.
Hai shared an example of a young African artist who managed to leverage the Binance NFT marketplace to earn funds. However, instead of getting into the more familiar route of “buying cars and houses,” he “built a school to bring more straight artists into teaching them how to use blockchain to create more art.”
Consequently, she believes NFTs will work as a “technological renaissance for inspiration, for art.” She noted that Binance strives to lower the entry barriers for regular people so they can create freely.
As far as CZ goes, Hai said there’s a good relationship between the two, built on trust, but Binance’s CEO still likes to be involved directly in almost all projects.
Protect the Users
Speaking about the Binance NFT marketplace, Hai specifies the keys to success and doesn’t worry that most of the NFTs trading action is currently happening far away from Binance and BNB – on the Ethereum-based OpenSea marketplace.
“We’re going to try to bring more valuable content into the industry, something that really has a long-term sustainable value. I think behind all things people talk about Binance is the principle to protect the users because I don’t want you to come to our platform buying something, and three months later all your years of savings turn into zero.
And then you will never want to work with our platform. That’s something we don’t want to do. If we want to provide you with a list of things, we need to at least have certain checks.”
And what about the future of NFTs? According to Hai, “The internet’s purpose is the free transfer of information. You don’t need a newspaper to know what’s going on thousands of miles away. And then what’s the ultimate purpose for us, for blockchain, I think it’s the free transfer of value.”
“Crypto is just the first layer of transferring value, but then there are other forms. NFTs are another form. There’s going to be more – maybe in the metaverse. But I think it’s a definite upward version of crypto in terms of helping blockchain to achieve its ultimate goal of free transfer of values.”
