Oliver Carding
Head of Marketing at Tesseract Group, a MiCA-authorised digital-asset firm, and before that Head of Marketing at Improbable and Senior Digital Marketing Lead at eBay. Almost two decades across brand, growth and product marketing, six of them running paid and organic teams agency-side, and in crypto since 2014. Based in Manchester.
Trusted to lead their marketing
I have spent almost two decades building brand, growth and product marketing: search campaigns for a boiler manufacturer and an asset manager agency-side, a team of five inside eBay, a marketing function at MSquared taken from a standstill to a working operation, and a collectibles project of my own that Forbes wrote about. In each case the job was to set the direction and then make the numbers move.
Much of the work starts with deciding what matters. A team is busy, the calendar is full, and nobody can say what any of it is producing. Working out which activity carries the business, which does not, and what the sequence should be from here is the part of the job I am best at, and it is where every engagement and every new role begins.
I write landing pages and have migrated production websites to Next.js, this one included. That matters less as a skill than as a habit: I do not hand over recommendations I could not implement, and I can judge the work of the people I lead because I have done it.
I am direct about what marketing can and cannot do. If a product has no audience, no content strategy invents one, and I would rather say so in the first conversation than in month four.
Marketing lead for a MiCA-authorised digital-asset firm working in institutional lending and regulated crypto vaults. Strategy, brand, content, PR and demand generation, in close partnership with Legal and Compliance. Built the multi-channel inbound strategy that generated more than $60m of open pipeline in 2026 and brought in $5m of new client funds. Took the firm from near-zero press presence to 86 earned-media placements across 23 outlets, ten of them in Bloomberg, alongside CoinDesk, The Block, Barron’s and Decrypt. Led the migration off a legacy WordPress site onto Next.js and built an SEO-led education programme around it; website conversion rate more than doubled, from 0.67% to about 1.5%.
Marketing and communications for Improbable and its spun-out Web3 venture MSquared, across B2B and B2C. Led go-to-market for MSquared’s launch as an independent company and for partner activations with the BBC, Major League Baseball and Yuga Labs. Built the social presence end to end: 900+ posts generating around 1.65 million impressions.
Reported to the Marketing Director. Led a team of five across paid and organic for eBay’s Web3 marketplace while also acting as product manager for the marketplace squad. Promoted from contract to permanent within five months.
Led digital strategy and a cross-disciplinary team of five for B2B and B2C clients across travel, finance and energy, among them Liontrust Asset Management, Small Luxury Hotels, Baxi and Brakes. Turned around a dissatisfied key account with a paid and organic audit, cutting cost per lead 40% in six months and growing leads 60% year on year, which made it the agency’s most valuable account.
Led a team of five and merged the organic and paid media departments, running digital strategy for ten client accounts across finance, energy and recruitment, including Aldermore, Cumberland Building Society, Co-op Energy and Morson.
Running the search function across the client base.
Where the search and analytics grounding came from: four years of hands-on SEO, paid search and measurement before managing anyone.
Freelance and things I built myself
The first project to link NFTs with physical collectibles, built from proof of concept to a profitable business with more than $250,000 in sales. Ran the whole operation: sourced manufacturers, oversaw production and end-to-end sales, managed front-end development, and led the marketing. Secured partnerships with the NBA, The Sandbox and Dapper Labs. Forbes, November 2018·NBA.com, October 2019
Founded and grew a cryptocurrency news publication into one of the sector’s recognised titles, building and leading a team of writers, setting editorial direction, interviewing industry figures, and running advertiser relationships and monetisation.
Paid media, content, PR and social for a leading mining company and for Blockrocket and its clients.
Marketing a product the market didn’t know it needed
A podcast episode on marketing Tesseract under MiCA: dedicated client vaults, the channel mix, and why press matters more now than in the SEO-and-links era.
Market commentary
Quoted on bitcoin and crypto markets as head of marketing at Tesseract Group.
Bitcoin bulls eye next leg as $15 billion options expiry nears
Cited on why the size of an expiry alone does not set direction.
Bitcoin’s $15 billion options expiry tests the rally this week
On the quarterly expiry as a positioning and roll event rather than a directional signal.
Why is crypto going down today? Bitcoin slips toward $82,600, XRP falls 7%
On the options expiry and Strategy’s average cost as a support level.
Bitcoin Cash runs 27% on CME futures listing as bitcoin gives up the day
On the session Bitcoin Cash rallied on CME’s futures listing while bitcoin closed lower.
Strategy’s STRC “at the center” of one of the “biggest bitcoin buying” months
On how Strategy’s earnings call changed the framing around its bitcoin buying.
Why bitcoin is surging today? BTC tops $72,000 after Strait of Hormuz shock
On ETF flows being outweighed by wider market forces.
CryptoKaiju
Coverage of the physical-to-digital collectibles project I founded in 2018.
Sacramento Kings lead the way for sports in cryptocurrency solutions
Quoted on the Kings partnership and on sports teams linking physical and digital collectibles.
The NBA announcement of its collaboration with CryptoKaiju.
Wouldn’t you like a real CryptoKitty?
On the licensed CryptoKitties vinyl figure made with Dapper Labs.
Collectable toys based on the Ethereum blockchain
On the third batch, a CryptoKitty vinyl figure.
Crypto Kaiju releases CryptoKitties toys linked to Ethereum tokens
On keeping each batch fresh and working with Dapper Labs.
CryptoKaiju: non-fungible tokens and the future of toys
A long interview on designing the toys, and the ambition to become the Amiibo of Ethereum.
CryptoKaiju releases V2 of blockchain-based, vinyl collectibles
On demand for the first batch and the tamper-resistance added in V2.
A full interview on starting CryptoKaiju and using NFC chips to link vinyl toys to tokens.
CryptoKaiju launches crypto-themed vinyl toys, fully traceable on a public blockchain
On authenticity problems in designer toys, from a collector’s point of view.
Physical meets digital: CryptoKaiju launches first collectible toys on the blockchain
Forbes on the launch of CryptoKaiju.
U.K. startup launches crypto-themed toys; oh, and they’re on the blockchain
On how meeting KnownOrigin led to a physical collectible linked to an ERC-721 token.
This new $55 cryptocollectible can collect real dust
Interviewed from Manchester about launching the toys as a passion project.
Talks, interviews and video
On stage at NFT.NYC and NFT.London, on air with TRT World, and on The Marketing Desk podcast.
E-commerce 3.0 with NFTs: tokenizing physical items
A panel on connected products, how they link to NFTs, and what the benefit to a brand actually is.
In conversation with Ben White of Rug Radio
Recorded at NFT.London as eBay’s Web3 manager.
Tokenizing physical collectibles
A talk at NFT.NYC 2019 on linking vinyl toys to tokens with CryptoKaiju.
A short definition recorded for NFT.NYC.
Interview on the identity of bitcoin’s founder
A television interview, as founder of CoinJournal, on the claimed identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
What people who’ve worked with me say
Holly Duffy
Head of Performance Marketing, STM Agency
“I have genuinely never worked with someone that has such vast and in-depth knowledge of digital marketing than Ollie; his unparalleled knowledge of SEO, Google Ads and Analytics is incredible.”
Andy Gray
Director, eBay
“Oliver played an instrumental role in successfully marketing KnownOrigin and putting us on the map from the day we launched. He has a strong work ethic and commitment to success.”
Hakeem Whitmore
Blockchain developer
“Oliver excelled in heading up his department across both product and campaign marketing, demonstrating exceptional leadership and organisational skills.”
David Moore
Co-founder, KnownOrigin
“Oliver is a very capable marketer with a unique blend of technical knowledge and creative vision. His contributions have added value to our marketing team.”
Bitmain
Global Marketing Lead
“The technical depth and speed Oliver brought were game-changing. In six months we jumped from invisible to dominating key searches, and our ad spend is now one of the highest-ROI channels company-wide.”
How I work
No. I work as an individual, so you work directly with me throughout an engagement, and I take on a limited number at a time. For a company that needs a marketing lead in post, I also take employed and contract roles.
Yes. I write landing pages and have migrated production websites to Next.js, including this one. I do not hand over recommendations I could not implement myself.
- Manchester, United Kingdom
- Crypto and Web3, fintech, B2B technology
- Head of Marketing, Tesseract Group. Open to the next role, full time or contract
- Within one working day
Questions people ask first
The ones about money are on the pricing page.
Something not covered here? Ask me directly.
Who is Oliver Carding?
A marketing leader and independent consultant based in Manchester, with almost two decades across brand, growth and product marketing, and in crypto since 2014. Previously Head of Marketing at Improbable and Senior Digital Marketing Lead at eBay, with six years running integrated paid and organic teams agency-side before that. Founded the cryptocurrency publication CoinJournal in 2014 and the physical-to-digital NFT project CryptoKaiju in 2018.
What kinds of company do you work with?
Crypto and Web3 first, then fintech and B2B technology. The common thread is a technical product sold to an audience that can tell when the messaging is thin, and often a regulator or a compliance team in the approval path.
What do you do day to day?
In a role: the strategy, the plan and the team, and a share of the work itself, from positioning and launches to search, content, PR and measurement. In a consultancy engagement: usually an audit and a prioritised plan first, then two or three disciplines working together, such as strategy with SEO and content, or strategy with paid and measurement.