Ben O'Hanlon

RealFi is building stablecoin infrastructure connecting RWAs, private credit and onchain capital to real-world credit markets.

Turned Cardano’s validator network into a measurable distribution channel. Designed and launched the SPO Accelerator in the first 60 days, generating 3K+ verified wallets and 40K attributable onchain actions in four weeks, with at least 1 in 7 active L1 wallets participating in the testnet.

• Testnet engagement: 3,690 wallets activated, with 1,901 completing the full swap, stake, unstake and claim journey—51.5% of activated wallets as of 1 September.

• Incentive performance: 89% validator activation in three weeks. 84% of Accelerator pools grew their delegator base against 17% of comparable pools outside the programme.

• Attribution and execution: Combined onchain behaviour with community influence to make advocacy, referrals and capital participation measurable, then co-created campaigns with validator communities that enabled operators to self-organise around shared outcomes.

Input Output is the research and engineering company behind Cardano, evolving during my tenure from an engineering firm into a venture studio.

Won $190M in continuity funding for Input Output research and engineering as stewardship of a $1.3B treasury moved to the community. Ran the ecosystem function with a lean team of 5 to 10 through Cardano's transition to onchain governance.

• Treasury and governance execution: Enabled execution of a $250M treasury cycle, with proposals passing by supermajority in the first year of community-run governance. Led Input Output's ecosystem GTM for the governance rollout.

• Governance mapping and coordination: Converted a cold-start governance body into a coordinated electorate. Built the intelligence layer tracking 95%+ of active voting power across 1K+ dReps, 86K+ actively delegating wallets and 15B ADA live stake, with owned channels reaching 51%+.

• Network coordination and validator readiness: Mobilised 45% of 21B ADA staked within 24 hours across 250+ independent validators, coordinating readiness through network transitions and hard forks.

• Builder capital deployment: Built a funding and coordination engine directing $20M to core engineering and infrastructure teams, with 26 of 27 shortlisted proposals approved and delivered.

• New network and regional GTM: Formed Midnight's initial validator set of 137 and established Japan governance GTM across five key regions.

Scaled the smart-contract ecosystem from 0 to 2K+ projects, with 22K+ developers educated through Plutus Pioneers. Led developer and builder GTM as smart contracts went live after the Alonzo upgrade.

• Team and operating model: Adapted staffing to changing business needs, contributed to headcount planning and maintained dotted-line relationships and shared playbooks across emerging business units.

• Technical-user research: Ran office hours, surveys and market research across developers, stake pool operators and governance participants to identify adoption barriers and network priorities.

• Builder activation: Partnered with the education team to turn developer education into projects live on the network.

• Ecosystem intelligence and coordination: Combined ecosystem mapping, success metrics and live intelligence to identify priority teams and deliver targeted support.

Scaled the validator network from 175 to 3K+ as Cardano decentralised block production through the Shelley era. Led network GTM across the Incentivized Testnet, Shelley, Mary, Alonzo and Vasil launches and upgrades.

• Validator adoption and network readiness: Built the coordination systems required for a distributed validator network to operate reliably across launches, hard forks and protocol upgrades.

• Capital allocation and decentralisation: Designed and ran Input Output's multi-year ADA delegation programme, recommending stake allocations across successive rounds to bootstrap emerging operators and accelerate validator decentralisation.

• Network reporting: Established reliable reachability across the block-production network and tracked readiness, sentiment and coordination risk during critical transitions.

Built the Cardano Foundation's largest referral channel at $0 acquisition cost while helping bootstrap the early validator network for decentralised block production.

• Validator activation: Accelerated validator onboarding and stake-pool participation through Stake Pool School, reactivating dormant stakeholders as the network decentralised.
• Distribution and discovery: Restored information flow through third-party discovery surfaces including CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko and wallet listings.
• Network standards: Helped launch the Cardano Improvement Proposal process, establishing operational pathways used for upgrades at network scale.

Komodo built cross-chain blockchain infrastructure, including BarterDEX and AtomicDEX, a non-custodial multi-coin wallet and peer-to-peer decentralised exchange powered by atomic swaps.

Led early developer and distribution growth, growing the email audience from 2.4K to 12K and Discord from 2.6K to 6.6K.

• Developer adoption: Designed and ran developer programmes, including a third-party application initiative, to scale the developer ecosystem.
• Distribution: Built product distribution across email, weekly Reddit AMAs, social and third-party crypto publications for Komodo’s wallet, DEX and developer stack.