Meet Ben Baldieri: PR & Media Lead of the Nano Foundation
Ben Baldieri has joined the Nano Foundation as PR & Media Lead, heralding from The Global Blockchain Initiative and Zigurat Global Institute of Technology Master’s Programme. With many years of international experience in Asia, Ben intends to bring his public relations and media know-how to the typically conservative Nano Foundation to share the word of nano, the work of the Nano Foundation and the Nano Community far and wide moving forward.
With Ben’s diverse background and interest in the cryptocurrency space, a Spotlight interview is a great way to get to know him — Meet Ben Baldieri!
Welcome! And first things first: tell us a bit about yourself!
My name is Ben Baldieri, and I’m a marketer that draws on professional experience in multiple industries to create exciting storytelling and drive engaging messaging. My journey started with a bachelor’s degree in human biology. With that, I did what anyone sensible would do and moved into IT consultancy. Since then, I’ve worked in commodities broking, education, and other industries, before transitioning into the blockchain space full-time.
Last year, I returned to the UK after several years in China, and started my blockchain consulting business, ran the world’s first free to enroll blockchain academy, and launched a DAO focused podcast. To that end, I’m currently the director of communications and growth for the Global Blockchain Initiative (GBI), run my own company, and am the founder & host of The DAOstronaut! I’ve built some deep connections with several communities in Africa, South-East Asia, and South America through this work.
What brings you here, to the Nano Foundation?
I had the opportunity to work with both George and Colin through GBI when they very kindly delivered some lectures for the inaugural GBI Academy. I was impressed with the work ethic they both displayed, but more importantly, I resonated with the values they were demonstrating. Crypto and blockchain is a great space to be involved in, but greed is the primary driver of many projects. This is not the case with nano or any of the team, so when George presented me with the opportunity to get involved, I jumped at it. To have a chance to be pushing forward the narrative on such a cutting edge technology is a dream come true.
In your opinion, what makes nano unique?
Two things about nano stood out to me. Firstly it was the focus on solving real-world problems that the team has. Through my work with GBI, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with some incredible people in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. Many of these people stated an excellent need for alternative currencies and technologies to facilitate remittances and manage their businesses. Nano is doing precisely this, and their singular focus on this particular use case instead of being distracted by whatever the current market trend or “meta-narrative” is, is amazing to see.
The second aspect is the feeless nature of nano’s architecture. Fees lead to emergent centralisation over time as those with greater means to capture those fees can and will do so. If you remove those fees and find a way to mitigate the risk of spam attacks, then there is no incentive to centralise over time. This is a difficult thing to achieve and has not been done by anyone yet. Nano is at the forefront of this battle, and I think it is something that a lot more people should be talking about and actively working towards.
What have you been working on over the first few weeks at the Nano Foundation? How have you found it?
My first few weeks have consisted of me getting my arms around the wealth of information that’s out there about nano and exploring what the community is up to. The nano community is unique in the crypto space, and it’s refreshing to see such a large group of people who are all so passionate about solving real-world financial problems. I’ve also been writing and digging into what recent regulatory announcements in the UK mean for the Nano Foundation — some of you may have already seen the finished article!
Everyone has been amazingly welcoming, and I’m looking forward to leveraging my skills to deliver some value for the team and the community! It’s been a steep learning curve, but I feel like I’m finally starting to feel as though I have a handle on what’s going on. I’m also beginning to understand what plans are for the future, and I’ll say right now that they are inspiring.
What are your plans, strategies, and three milestones you hope to achieve in the near future?
Nano is collaborating with some fantastic partners and working on use-cases that are literally world-changing. However, the issue is that there’s not a huge amount of content out there showcasing what these things are and why they matter. I’ll be looking to change this by putting together a comprehensive global PR strategy, alongside Pim, to demonstrate all of the awesome things happening in the nano community.
The first step will be to launch and host a nano podcast. I’ll be looking to interview our partners, team members, and prominent community members to better understand who they are, what they’re up to, and why nano matters to them.
Nano is of the industry, but it’s not like everything else. As I mentioned earlier, the team’s singular focus on creating the most efficient global currency is misunderstood by many people. There are many routes to success, and I’ll be highlighting how nano is already being successful in the real world. I’ll also be writing about everything and anything nano-related in the context of the broader crypto ecosystem.
A project doesn’t have to emulate Ethereum to be successful, but that’s the metric many people seem to be working with. I’ve read some interesting conversations around how lacking smart contracts is a death sentence, which is interesting because smart contracts never entered the discussion until Ethereum pioneered them. I’ll be looking to wade into that conversation and challenge a few notions that people have.
Besides, I’m a gamer. I love everything about gaming, so my brain started whirring when I discovered that nano has integrations with both the Unity and Unreal gaming engines. Gaming has seen a bit of a renaissance recently with the emergence of GameFi and the rise of p2e games. The problem with these games is that you still have to cash out into fiat no matter how much money you’re making in-game. With the game engine integrations, I see no reason nano couldn’t be integrated into an in-game economy so that cashing out is no longer necessary. That way, you’d be able to spend your nano in-game and in the real world.
I’m looking forward to exploring this particular use case in coming articles; I don’t think people realise how big this could be!
You’re involved in a few other projects, can you give a short overview of these?
Absolutely! The first is GBI, for whom George is an advisor. We’re a blockchain education non-profit focused on fixing the biggest three problems we see in blockchain education today:
- Free blockchain educational content isn’t very good. Type blockchain into YouTube, and you’ll be greeted by pages of “buy this dog token for the next 100x” or a 5-minute video from a business school regarding their executive education program.
- Quality educational content is expensive and myopic. There are some fantastic academies and resources out there, but they’re expensive and tend to only focus on one aspect of blockchain, be that Bitcoin, NFTs, DeFi, or otherwise.
- Everything is in English. Most of the good educational content is focused on the North American, European, or English-speaking markets. This excludes most of the world, especially SE Asia, Africa, South America, or Central Asia. These places stand to benefit the most from this technology, but there’s nothing out there for them at the moment.
The big project that I worked on with GBI was the GBI academy. Over six months, we built the community from zero to over 4900 students enrolled in the course from 126 countries. I’m incredibly proud of our work and what we achieved, and I’ve received some inspiring messages from people worldwide thanking us for the opportunity. I’ll be looking to leverage what I learned about building blockchain educational content for nano and explore the links I have to different communities in Africa.
The second project is my consulting company. Business owners and individuals alike lose a lot of money because of the number of intermediaries involved in even the simplest of transactions. I consult with key decision-makers in multiple industries on how they can effectively leverage blockchain technology to transform their business and capture more of the value they create.
Finally, I host a podcast called the DAOstronaut. DAOs are a fundamentally new way for individuals to organise around something they care about. I interview individuals in the DAO space on the show and find out what they’re doing, how their DAO operates, and why it’s important. I’ll also be looking to utilise the skills I have gained here to do something similar for the nano community.
Thanks, Ben, and to sum up, what would be your greeting message for the Nano Community?
Hello everyone, super excited to be here and looking forward to getting to know some of you in the coming weeks and months. I’m aware that I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m looking forward to the challenge! It’s going to be an awesome journey, and I’m looking forward to adding value wherever I can! If there’s ever anything you think I should know, or if you think I could be adding more value in some way, do feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
As a final point, I’ll explore existing ties with African crypto and blockchain communities to see how nano could fit their needs. This again comes down to education, so I’ll ensure that we have all the necessary resources to facilitate this.
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Thank you for your answers, Ben, and welcome to the team!
