Some of the most important crypto projects use blockchain to enable users to share in the value created in the information economy. Recently, we’ve made considerations on how to enable regular internet users to share in the value created by the digital media and advertising industry.

The product launch mentioned in the last two blog posts is approaching a beta phase. While it is currently in alpha testing (internal team tests), we would like to provide more details on what the launch will do for users, advertisers, publishers, and the XCLR network.

There is a notable growth in the use of ad blockers globally with 615 million devices using the technology for an ad-free browsing experience. As a result, $42 billion of potential publisher revenue is lost globally. The $42 billion lost by publishers globally means an estimated 15 billion ads are blocked per year (using $2.80 CPM as an average). The new product launch can help recover some of the lost $42 billion.

The duopoly of advertising giants, Google and Facebook, are generating over $50 billion of combined ad revenue annually. Internet users help these companies create that value, but they don’t directly share in this generated value. The new product launch we’ve been working on helps users share in that created value while sharply increasing the amount of ad inventory available in the ClearCoin network.

We’re starting within the Chrome browser for the first launch of the new product. Chrome is a browser that has millions of ad blocking Extension installs. A visit to the Chrome Web Store shows several Extensions that enable users to block ads while they are browsing the web. It makes sense to many users to simply block the ads because they don’t share in the value generated by these ads.

The Extension that we’re launching on the Chrome Web Store replaces and displays ads that a user may have otherwise blocked and enables the user to share in the value generated by the ad by earning XCLR. It is important to note that ads are only displayed where the publisher intended to have an ad displayed. Through our publisher network, the publisher is also enabled to claim XCLR for ads that were displayed on their website.

The reasoning for the user is simple. Where they were previously blocking ads, they are now seeing ads and sharing in the revenue in the form of earning XCLR. The user would be earning XCLR while simply browsing the web as they normally do. The proportion of the value for the user will be 20% for the user from the cost of the ad buy that would be sent in XCLR. The Extension also serves as a wallet that can send and receive XCLR and ETH. This is a fully decentralized wallet as we described in a previous post.

The Extension also helps resolve the ad fraud problem by requiring users to complete a know your customer form (KYC) to claim XCLR earned on the network. The ad fraud problem is causing losses of $16 billion for the industry on an annual basis. By completing KYC, advertisers and publishers know that a real person saw an ad that was displayed. The KYC form is the same as the one we have been using since the start of the project.

We believe there can be a sharp increase in ad supply available because of the Extension. The sharp increase would also bring more activity to the XCLR network. For example, 100,000 Extensions installed with users seeing 200 ads per day results in 20,000,000 total ads per day. At an industry average $2.80 CPM, that results in $1,680,000/month generated by the XCLR network. We are using dollar values in this example to make it simple, and these dollar values would have to be thought of in XCLR terms to understand the impact on the network. The impact it has should be significant.

If you’re interested in joining the beta test, please use the form in the beta testers announcement post.

The screenshots below show the Extension at work. It is currently only displaying our ads but when the product is live it will display ads from our demand partners. The demand partners will bring a wide variety of ads to the network.