Adchain, an Ethereum-based blockchain technology tailored for the online advertising industry, has partnered with ConsenSys, a blockchain venture studio building decentralized applications focused on the Ethereum platform, to develop an industry-first blockchain solution tailored for the online advertising industry.
Digital Advertising: A Flawed Ecosystem
Advertising is a big growth industry. Global ad spending reached $542.55 billion in 2016, driven by bigger investments in digital advertising. In the U.S. alone, digital accounts for $60 billion, roughly 33 percent, of $183 billion in total ad spending. Despite the industry’s continued growth, digital advertising lacks many of the core building blocks that make an ecosystem secure, costing the industry billions of dollars a year.
For example, the industry’s siloed data and limited standards make it impossible to identify many types of fraudulent behavior. As a result, nefarious actors exploit gaps and lack of transparency to steal value from the digital supply chain. The ecosystem is missing a common language to coordinate and eliminate these fraud perpetrators.
These issues are exacerbated by continued fragmentation between advertising channels and protocols. The real-time buying and selling of inventory across a wide array of new platforms results in little visibility into who’s buying what – ultimately adding stress to an already flawed backbone.
“Fraud and inefficiencies in the supply chain cost the industry $8.2 billion annually – and that’s a conservative figure. Fraud is impossible to audit today,” said Ken Brook, founder and CEO of adChain. “The Methbot discovery, which stole up to $5 million daily from top advertisers and publishers, is only the tip of the iceberg and underscores the critical need for a new infrastructure.”
Blockchain: The Optimal Solution to Solve Ad Fraud
Blockchain has the capability to transform digital advertising. For example, it can provide transparency into the supply chain using a shared ledger which also provides an audit trail. Beyond ad delivery verification, blockchain is also the only solution to provide a universal data set and common language everyone understands and trusts – becoming the single source of truth that all participants can access to work together and eliminate fraud.
“There is tremendous value and disruption potential of this technology beyond fintech. The development of smart contract-based applications in digital advertising is an ideal use case for blockchain,” said Joseph Lubin, founder, ConsenSys. “Supply chains and value chains are ideal use cases for Ethereum as it enables many cooperating and competing participants to work fluidly together on a shared platform that they can all trust to realize an efficient and fraud-resistant n-sided marketplace. We’ve been iterating on the adChain blockchain implementation for almost a year and believe adChain will significantly change the way advertisers and publishers operate their supply chains to exchange ad impressions.”
Brook continued:
“We have a big vision and it’s one we think ethereum developers will appreciate. The problems that plague online advertising require a scalable blockchain solution and the skills and intelligence of the developer community, who always appreciate a solid challenge. ConsenSys brings extensive technical and market expertise in the implementation of blockchain protocols and applications. They are the perfect partner to bring the two worlds of the crypto community and online advertising together.”
Xlabs Series: Calling Los Angeles Application Developers
adChain is hosting a workshop series, Xlabs, to educate developers on blockchain development. Developers will also have access to a set of APIs and tools to build decentralized applications (DApps) on the adChain blockchain. The adChain implementation showcases how Ethereum applies to digital advertising and the many problems that need to be solved.
The first event takes place Thursday, January 26th. For more details and to register, visit: https://www.meetup.com/Ethereum-Los-Angeles/events/236779580/. To receive access to video of event recordings contact: hello(at)adchain.com.
adChain is unlocking the power of blockchain for digital advertising. The company is founded by advertising industry veterans and based in Los Angeles. To sign up for company updates, please visit:https://www.adchain.com/.
ConsenSys is a venture production studio and custom software development consultancy building decentralized applications (DApps), enterprise solutions and developer tools for blockchain ecosystems, focused primarily on Ethereum. Powered by smart contracts and secured through encryption, our applications provide the benefits of transparency, auditability, and immutability that are unique to blockchain-based solutions. For more information please go to www.consensys.net.
