Hellen Hai, the president of Bifinity, Head of Binance Charity Foundation, Head of NFTs & Fan Token, and Goodwill Ambassador, has explained how blockchain technology revolutionized donations and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to elevate artists from less fortunate states.
In an exclusive interview during Paris Blockchain Week earlier this month, Hai shared her journey that started from being the perfect daughter and building factories in Africa through London to becoming the person behind some of the successful products at crypto exchange, Binance in China.
Hai started with a reputable degree and a job at a high-end company in London before turning 30 years. She later moved to Africa to establish more new factories and industrial parks that successfully created more than 4000 new jobs in several African states.
This successful milestone made the World Economic Forum nominate Hai as the Goodwill Ambassador among young global leaders. Her journey up until that point ultimately enabled her to tackle the growing issues of financial inequality. Unfortunately, at least 1% of the population now owns 90% or more of the global wealth.
Moreover, Hai later slightly shifted her focus to the world of cryptocurrency, projecting for more innovations, and she met Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of giant crypto exchange Binance. Based on her background, Zhao appointed her as the Head of the Charity Department, which she now thinks has the power to revolutionize the process through the employment of blockchain technology.
According to Hai, the current donation system is inefficient as only 25% of the donated funds reach the person or organization in need. She asserted:
“There are a lot of administration costs right now in donations. These are why blockchain technology really offers value. It has a lot of value cases because everything’s transparent, checkable.”
Hai’s first task at Binance was to restore efficiency in the donation system and ensure that 100% of donated funds end up in those in need. She noted that giant exchange does not charge any fees or administration costs for charitable services since everything is transparent on the blockchain.
Binance NFT Marketplace
Notably, in the past few years, the role of Hai at Binance has expanded from just being the Head of Charity Foundation to the President of Bifinity, a regulated fiat-to-crypto service provider launched earlier this year. Furthermore, Hai is now the head of the rapidly-growing industry of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and fan tokens.
During the interview, Hai narrated how she introduced the idea of creating an NFT marketplace, which Zhao approved immediately and went live within a few months. Hai believes that NFTs are the best way to empower artists who would previously pass through hurdles and struggles to get exposure to their artworks.
The top Binance official cited a perfect example of a young African artist who successfully leveraged the Binance NFT marketplace to earn life-changing revenue. Surprisingly, instead of acquiring luxury cars and houses, the young entrepreneur decided to build a school to amass more straight artists and teach them how to use blockchain to create more art.
In the same spirit, Hai believes the rapidly evolving NFTs industry will serve as a technological renaissance for inspiration for the arts and artists. She noted that Binance aims to lower the entry barrier for more regular artists to enter the NFTs space.
Binance NFTs Safety
The top executive highlighted security as the main factor that has led to the success of the Binance NFT marketplace. Hai assured all users that Binance is committed to offering a more secure NFT platform. She noted that the company does not worry that most 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 why 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 in three months, 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.”
Before summarizing, Hai hinted about the future of non-fungible tokens (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,” adding:
“Crypto is just the first layer of transferring value, but 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.”
