Launch Bankless UK

Grants/Funding
1

Author: @benharvey.eth

Date: 5th January, 2022

SUMMARY:

Set up “Bankless UK” as a specialised English-speaking node to create a local community and onboard as many people as possible in the UK to crypto.

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION:

The UK is home to over 68 million people, with the 5th largest GDP in the world, sitting at approximately $3.1 trillion. This population predominantly has access to both smartphones and the internet, and is currently deeply embedded in the traditional finance system. What this presents is a large and capital rich population with the means to enter crypto, but the majority of which are yet to go Bankless. There is an awareness of crypto within the UK, but this generally stops at Bitcoin or Ethereum as a speculative asset. There is a lot of work to be done to open people’s eyes to the possibility of utilising crypto to go fully bankless.

You might be wondering why a UK node is necessary if content produced by Bankless HQ and BanklessDAO is already in English. Unlike other nodes that have been established within the BanklessDAO, the UK obviously has the luxury of access to information and educational content, however the majority of this content is US centric. While this is generally useful, it misses a crucial element that UK citizens consider when onboarding into crypto - UK specific content. Not only do regulations differ significantly in the UK to the US, but we also have a multitude of political and social topics to consider, such as Brexit, UK specific government issues and regulations etc. So fundamentally, there is a lack of tailored onboarding advice and relevant news flow for UK citizens, which I believe acts as a barrier of entry to crypto.

I believe there is an opportunity to address a large market and complement the content of Bankless HQ and BanklessDAO with a location specific news and information flow. As such, I would like to propose a UK community that pushes UK specific onboarding content, focusing on relevant topics in the UK.

A topic I have been considering is why this can’t be achieved through the existing channels of the BanklessDAO, such as the marketing guild. While I think there is definitely scope for collaboration with existing guilds, as many IMN already leverage today, I believe the niche of such a community requires a specialised node. Not only is the content niche by definition, considering it is UK centric, but having a specialised node allows us to build a local community, in the same way several IMNs have. This community would be empowered through in-person meet ups, location specific Twitter spaces AMAs and interviews etc.

SPECIFICATION:

  • Launch Bankless UK engagement platforms on the following platforms: Twitter, Discord. Possibility of expanding to Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc. if the team has capacity.

  • Organise community in-person meet-ups in prominent locations across the UK (London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff, Dublin etc.)

  • Launch Bankless UK location specific content. Initially aiming to produce audio content in the form of podcasts and Twitter spaces, and written content in the form of blog posts on Substack

  • IMPORTANT: Promote (and not replicate or compete with) existing Bankless HQ and BanklessDAO content. This is a really important point, the content we produce will be focused on a UK audience, but we will still want the UK audience to view Bankless HQ and BanklessDAO content. In this sense, you can think of us as a promotional funnel, sharing links to existing content, but not replicating it and branding it as our own.

NEXT STEPS:

If approved, Bankless UK will spin up the necessary engagement platforms and begin formulating a team and strategies to onboard as many people in the UK as possible into crypto.

I’d love to see what the community thinks about the idea of launching a Bankless UK node, and hear any feedback you guys have! If anyone wants to speak to me directly my DMs are open on discord and twitter.

A special thanks to the following for helping me get to this stage: @thinkDecade, @Jengajojo, @Airbear, @paulDE

  • Yes - I support the launch of Bankless UK
  • No - I do not support the launch of Bankless UK
  • I support the launch of Bankless UK but think it requires revisions

0 voters

2 Likes
2

I agree with your ideas of producing regulation specific content for the UK as well as other relevant material that UK members can vibe with more easily.

All the best :v:

3

Even tho I think BanklessDAO should be everywhere, I don’t think having a UK branch will be an efficient use of resources. I mean, the UK is a first-world nation with most of the people having the education, common knowledge and culture to address their economic needs with ease. A UK resident can easily find blockchain related content in english almost anywere, including UK personalities and companies (think The Defiant, Real Vision Finance, Coin Bureau, Daily Gwei).

On the other hand, the UK Federal Reserve is not as shitty as the US. Economic and monetary problems in the UK are very mild. IMO, we should follow the market. Where are people adopting blockchain like crazy? Africa, South America & Asia. There is where we need to be. We need ambassors and personalities that represent people in need of this technology. Stories don’t just resonates, stories sell.

My 0.2 banks

1 Like
4

Thanks for your thoughts!! I actually completely agree with you, Bankless should definitely be represented in geographical areas where blockchain is needed due to political and social issues. We’ve started to see this with Bankless Africa, Bankless Brazil etc., and hopefully will see more international media nodes spin up over the next few months. This is clearly where they’re needed the most.

However, I don’t believe that having local communities in the areas mentioned above are mutually exclusive with having local communities in first-world geographical areas.

Firstly, in terms of resources, I think that members of BanklessDAO like myself who are situated in the UK would struggle to have an impact building community in Africa, South America and Asia, for many reasons (language barriers, inability to facilitate in-person meet-ups etc.). For this reason I’d argue deploying such resources to a Bankless UK node wouldn’t be an inefficient allocation, but rather an efficient one in terms of building towards onboarding 1 billion people into crypto, i.e. doing what they can to help the mission from where they are.

Secondly, while you’re right that UK citizens can find English written content at ease, I’d like to draw a distinction between english-written content and UK centric content. The majority of crypto content is produced out of the US and references topical issues there (SEC, GG, onboarding as a US citizen), but these issues are different in the UK. Particularly from an onboarding perspective, where UK citizens may have drivers onboard into crypto that differ from those of US citizens (Brexit etc.). I’d argue that topical local content (btw I don’t think this applies only to the UK, I’m sure Australia etc. also would benefit from content tailored to their political and social circumstances) will accelerate crypto adoption in these areas.

Finally, just because citizens of the UK live in a first-world country it doesn’t mean that they’re being efficiently onboarded into crypto, and that a local Bankless node wouldn’t enhance this. This ties into my second point, but I feel that UK centric issues regarding crypto aren’t being discussed sufficiently in crypto content, especially onboarding content - and we actually have the opportunity to create these personalities under the Bankless brand. In terms of your comments about the UK Central Bank, we certainly also have issues, and are no stranger to QE and debasement of the GBP.

I completely appreciate the points you’ve made, and would love to hear other peoples views on this. Fundamentally, I think this comes down to creating local communities around the world that will accelerate the onboarding of 1 billion people into crypto.

2 Likes
5

I like your arguments. I belive you have fair points. Anyway, It is a thing of creating specific KPIs that complement with the already english content being produced. In-person meetings and local regulatory issues based on your jurisdiction are some strong points that need to be addressed and not just in the UK, but in all BanklessDAO and HQ content because, like you said, most content is focusing on the United States reality.

6

Yeah KPIs are certainly something to consider. The IMNs have some really neat standards around KPIs, but obviously they can’t be applied to an english-speaking node. I think KPIs aren’t strictly necessary to begin with, since we won’t be seeking funding any time soon, this proposal is about gauging community responses to having local english-speaking communities. I suppose this could even be a use case experiment for best practises in doing so, and we could develop KPIs etc. over time. In-person meet ups etc. will certainly play a big part in these I would imagine.

7

Thank you for putting this effort forward.

Firstly I will say that in Canada we inherited old Colonial English law and being a relatively young country, modern central banking - Neither of which look anything remotely close to the systems in the USA, but I can say with strong conviction that the Bankless message not tailored to directly to Canadians is not a barrier to entry into crypto.

I am not against a UK node, but I think this proposal for an English speaking node needs reasons other than or in addition to those that have been presented:

The issues of regulation and taxation are already addressed by the Legal Guild within Bankless DAO and externally for example by the LexPunk Army and other platforms. The reasons presented appear to be at cross-purposes with the Legal Guild.

My understanding of the purpose of establishing “International nodes” is to communicate the universal message of Bankless in languages alternative to the English language to reach non-English speakers; functionally it’s a translation department and the underlaying reason for the establishment of international nodes is not alignment with old world political lines or tribal systems . This proposal , as presented, appears to be out of the scope of “International nodes”.

I understand that this is an experiment we are all in and maybe the international node framework is evolving or needs to evolve. Maybe there is a place for a UK themed project or pipe.

For me, to change my vote from no to yes would require the proposal to be framed within the mission vision statement of Bankless and to show how and why the existing framework is inadequate and cannot scale to house a UK communication pipe or project which could show cause. Peace and respect.

8

Thanks for the feedback @rotorless!! It’s really interesting to hear your views on this.

I’m not fully clued up on the Legal Guild’s efforts to communicate information on regulation and taxation issues in countries outside of the US (although I did see and love the recent tax consultancy NFT proposal), but it would be great to hear more about this if anyone could comment! As mentioned in my post, much like Bankless Africa, Brazil etc. collaborate with guilds within the BanklessDAO on topics such as these, I would hope going forward that Bankless UK would too. I’d argue that the motivation of Bankless UK would be complementary to those of the Legal Guild, and would represent increased and specialised resources for collaboration.

You’re completely right in your understanding of international media nodes, and it’s important to emphasise that what I’m proposing is a completely new experimental model (for english speaking locations, though from which the learnings could be carried into all international nodes). One that is focused on the extension of the Bankless brand through building local communities. I’m not suggesting that Bankless UK is established to be aligned with old world political lines, rather to enable the migration from said political lines to a Bankless movement. However, we need to pay attention to these old political lines in order to effectively facilitate this migration. If we’re discussing locally relevant events such as Brexit in the UK in conjunction to building a community (in-person meet ups etc.), we’ll be able to capture the attention of the population more effectively.

On your final point, I would argue that the establishment of Bankless UK fits well within the Bankless vision and mission: it’s a local community aimed purely at contributing to the onboarding of 1 billion people to crypto, from within the UK. I’m suggesting that this is the UK communication pipe. It may well be more suitable to simply piece together efforts within each guild to target english speaking regions (UK, Australia, Canada etc.), but I feel that spinning up local communities dedicated to such efforts would be a more effective way to do so.

9

Together, we will all get there for certain.

Thanks for responding. All proposals have merit. It becomes an issue of resource efficiency and an estimate of the asymmetric gains of one, over the linear gains of another. For certain I can imaging how a proposal is in mission vision alignment, but then I don’t know what the other voters think alignment is, and we vote on the same proposal but not for the same project.
For me, articulating mission vision alignment is how proposals get into the potential "yes "pile. If the proposal explains to me with hand puppets how it aligns then my vote is flipped.

Global Tax Consultancy Proposal + TAXpunk NFT.

10

As a British ex-pat, now full-time 'merican, I support the formation of a UK Node for increasing engagement and on-boarding. All the tools I have at my disposal in the States do not work in the UK, and localization of the bDAO is imperative for the growth and on-boarding of a billion people. The only question I would have is whether this could be launched WITHOUT bDAO funds, as our BANK reserves are depleting, and we need to move into income generation. This could easily be the function of the UK Node in itself.

1 Like
11

I don’t have strong opinions on this. I agree to the formation of this media node if there are people willing to commit the time and effort. Also, is there any financial implications??

12

Thanks for the feedback @chrisfcrypto!!

In terms of your question - you’re exactly right. In order for this to work from scratch without funding (as proposed) it’ll require a small team of individuals, ideally within the UK or up-to-date on issues within the UK, who can work on this. Anyone who’s interested please reach out.

Over time, this UK node could be used as an experiment to test various strategies of income generation for bDAO. One of the hopes being that when onboarding UK citizens into crypto, we’ll also onboard a proportion of them into bDAO, and contribute to BANK that way. There are obviously many other income generation strategies that would be explored to help make this a self-sustaining node.

@Kouros - you’re right, as much as I’m passionate about this I think it would be difficult to run the whole node myself, and so will require a few additional people to commit time and effort. In terms of financial implications, I’m proposing that this node is first launched using sweat equity, so no financial requirements to get it up and running. In the future, it might make sense to develop some specific KPIs, although for now there are clearly priorities for how BANK should be spent. As discussed above, there may even be scope for Bankless UK to be revenue generating, this is something we’d have to experiment with over time.

3 Likes
13

You don’t need permission to create the node if it doesn’t require funding from the DAO. So be free to do it.
I’m based in London and I organised a couple of meet ups last year. I can probably be involved in this somehow but I won’t be one of the main people.

2 Likes
14

Thanks - the proposal was intended to legitimise the node somewhat, and to gauge how the community would feel about it.

That’s awesome - I’ll DM you!

15

I love some of the ideas here. As a UK resident living abroad it’s a huge PITA dealing with crypto back home. That said, I voted no because I personally think we can safely fold a lot of this into the main Bankless threads, there appear to be more similarities than differences at this stage, welcome any challenge to that viewpoint.

16

As a UK resident my self - would love to see and be part of this in some capacity. Would also be awesome to meet likeminded individuals and UK based BANKLESS fam whilst we wait for US travel to be a viable option.

17

Understand your point, but there is a real lack of crypto infustructure being based out of the UK at the moment and having a DAO presence here would do wonders.

Speaking from experience, I moderated 2 UK based crypto discord communties and the lack of knowledge was wide spread and a lot of education was delivered. Also, I regularly check out blockchain based jobs in the UK and it is lacking in comparison to other parts of the world… can we change that?

So long story short, I think it’s a great idea to onboard the UK through Bankless DAO.

1 Like