Ethereum-based blockchain technology tailored to the online advertising industry, adChain has partnered with ConsenSys, a blockchain venture studio building decentralized applications focused on the Ethereum platform, to develop a blockchain solution for the online advertising industry.
Global advertising spending reached $542.55 billion in 2016, driven by bigger investments in digital advertising. In the U.S., digital accounts for about $60 billion of $183 billion total ad spending. Despite this, due to a lack of security, the industry loses billions of dollars a year.
An example can be seen where the industry’s siloed data and limited standards make it impossible to identify many types of fraudulent behaviour. As a result, malicious actors exploit gaps and lack of transparency to steal value from the digital supply chain. Issues such as this 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.
Ken Brook, founder and CEO of adChain, said: “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. 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 has the capability to transform digital advertising by providing transparency in 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.
Founder of ConsenSys, Joseph Lubin commented: “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,” “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 added: “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.”
adChain is also 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.
