How a Blockchain Company Is Harnessing NFTs to Promote Social Good

In her work for Binance, Helen Hai combines her two passions, charity and NFTs. And she recently sat down with us to discuss how her company devotes significant resources for global charity work and how she sees the NFT market evolving in the future.

Helen, tell us about your company.

Binance Charity advocates a simple mantra: You don't need to become a super-successful company in order to do good for society. So four years ago, when Binance started, we realized it's important in the Fourth Industrial Revolution to empower the bottom billion people. [Binance founder] CZ decided to set up Binance Charity because we believed that today we should not leave anyone behind.

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Binance has been advocating NFTs for social good. What can you tell us about that?
Last year, Binance NFT and Charity launched the NFT for Good campaign, showcasing artwork from three different contemporary artists as a charity project to support children in need worldwide. Another Binance Charity flagship project is Lunch for Children, which provides meals for schools across Africa. We also have the Smile Angel Foundation, a charity dedicated to supporting children born with congenital defects. Another NFT for Good campaign we put together with digital artists is Crypto Against Covid. And as our contribution to the fight to protect our planet, we've launched our most ambitious project yet, planting 10 million trees worldwide.

Speaking a little bit more broadly, what else do you think we can expect from NFTs in 2022?
Number one: mass adoption. Number two: GameFi. Number three: disruption of the traditional market, such as music, ticketing and entertainment. Number four: dynamic NFTs that integrate with real-world events.

To elaborate on these four points, we should talk about the fundamental vision of blockchain and crypto. The purpose of the internet was to allow the free transfer of information globally. The purpose of blockchain should be to allow the free transfer of value. Cryptocurrencies are just the first chapter of setting up the infrastructure. NFTs are really the next chapter in repurposing the blockchain to enable the free transfer of value. And mass adoption is coming from NFTs. We can see that NFTs are an asset class already, and also a tool for engaging fans and art lovers, and this will continue to grow this year. I also believe the NFT avatar trend will keep growing.

The second trend I mentioned is GameFi. Traditional free-to-play developers will jump into the blockchain NFT-gaming industry, and we're going to see some flagship names coming into the space before the year's end. That's really going to push GameFi to the next level.

Another disruption of traditional markets we'll see in music ticketing. The growing popularity of NFTs has created more utility in the physical world, including exclusive access to personal perks, luxury items and services. Celebrities have embraced NFTs for better connection with their fans, and also as a method for selling exclusive content such as records, photos or branded fashion collections; the higher the demand, the more expensive the item.

I'll give you an example. We collaborated with Lewis Capaldi to create an exclusive NFT Mystery Box collection. The holders of those mystery boxes received various perks, such as a signed guitar, a studio session with the star, tickets to secret live shows, etc. We've seen this wave coming — NFT integrating more into real world events.

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What advice can you give entrepreneurs who are looking to get into the blockchain space?
Read and learn. I think it's very important first to understand the technology, to know what's going on, before you can actually play and invest. There's a lot of content and information on the internet. I really encourage anyone interested to first just read. Understand what an NFT is, how to create an NFT, what is DeFi, etc. That will give you the fundamental knowledge of the infrastructure before you can become a player.