In general the crypto market is mainly built upon hype and we have seen a lot of hyped up partnership announcements over time. Ripple, Verge, Tronix and many more projects have proven to master the art of hype marketing in the cryptomarkets. However, there are projects that have been living in the shadows and were practically hidden during the ongoing bear market. Difficult conditions for a crypto project, but perfect conditions for a company developing their project and preparing their self for the next time the industry will grab the attention.

Advertising is broken

48 cents of every dollar and that’s before ad fraud comes into the mix. Ad fraud is currently estimated to include that it is actually bots & non-human traffic driving 56% of all website traffic, costing advertisers $51 million a day in 2018 through fake traffic. Ad fraud even is the second largest source of income in organized crime!

Adbank is therefore out to disrupt the multi-hundred billion dollars digital advertising industry using blockchain technology built on the Ethereum network. It prides itself on not only stopping the bots through AI but also cutting out the middleman through blockchain, some of which are marking up the cost of ads by up to 70% or more.

Stepping out of the shadows

Adbank is one out of many blockchain based projects that focus on solving the problems in digital advertising. The ‘veterans’ such as BAT and AdEx have been around and been in development for years, yet, it’s a young Canadian company that is raising some brows now.

I will let Angelo Dodaro (CMO Adbank) do the talking on this part:

‘’The Austrian National Tourism Office (ANTO) is extremely tech-savvy and are known for pursuing innovative solutions in the digital advertising space, so working with them made a lot of sense for a company like Adbank that’s focused on an emerging technology such as blockchain. It turns out the ANTO team is very excited about blockchain, were aware of some of the potential benefits to them and had been watching the space closely. The credibility gained by working with an organization like ANTO is huge for a start-up like us at Adbank. ANTO’s willingness to work with us shows we’re on the right track.’’

Austrian pioneers

The Austrian government body is partnering with Adbank to participate in a pilot programme. Michael Scheuch, Head of Brand Management for ANTO, had this to say about working with the up and coming cryptocurrency startup:

“We are actively positioning Austria to be one of the premier global destinations to visit all year round. In the pilot with Adbank, one of the more interesting blockchain applications in the advertising sector, we hope to overcome on a global scale various difficulties within classic online advertising.” (Forbes, 2018)

It doesn’t end here, though. Adbank also has another notable player in the mix, with Red Bull Media House providing inventory on the publisher side via their alpine lifestyle publication Bergwelten. The Red Bull team agreed to participate in the campaign using Adbank’s technology after a visit by the Adbank team to their headquarters in Salzburg, Austria in April.

They aren’t done

As for what’s next for Adbank, last week they teamed up with Adweek to run a pilot on their homepage for Flixel, the creators of Apple Design Award winning software Cinemagraph Pro which creates ‘living photos’ that blend video and photography together.

Be a role model

Previously Adbank already joined the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to start a blockchain committee. By doing this, Adbank joins the rank of high profile members, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, L’oreal, McDonald’s and many more. And yes, I did just mention Adbank in the same sentence as some of world’s biggest brands. President of the IAB Canada stated: “Blockchain will have a profound impact on Ad tech in the coming years. We are excited to launch our IAB Canada blockchain committee, with Adbank amongst its founding members.” (Adbank, 2018)

Making name

In addition, QNY Creative, a creative agency that works with brands such as National Geographic and IHG Hotels, is partnering with Adbank to leverage its blockchain technology for the advertising industry and the Ethereum-based ADB token in a series of pilot campaigns for their clients. Just to mention some of their clients in addition to the first two mentioned previously; Ferrari, Levi’s, L’Oreal and Del Monte are all clients of QNY Creative. (NullTX, 2018)

Adbank is on a highway to becoming the number one blockchain-based Adtech business. With today’s announcement, they will forever be the first blockchain-based Adtech company to partner with a government body. This is a huge step, not just for Adbank but for the entire crypto space. As the title states, they earned a title that can never be taken away from them.

Are they biting of more than they can chew?

In the crypto industry, it’s harder to find a working product than to find a company that’s basically still advertising their whitepaper after year one. The question now is: How far in development is Adbank actually?

On the 12th of September they announced that they had succesfully deployed Adbank 1.0. They have been working days and nights in order to have the platform developed in time and they delivered results ahead of schedule. Click here for more information about the platform and its functionalities.

Where do they stand?

I generally refrain from price predictions and so will I this time. However when I compare Adbank to a project such as AdEx, I tend to say that Adbank may be ahead of them in terms of real world adoption, development and awareness. AdEx, had a marketcap of nearly 200M USD at the ATH and were in the top 100 of all cryptocurrencies. Currently they’re positioned at rank 234, whereas Adbank is ranked 744th. We can state that merely based on business development, Adbank has the potential to grow a lot from where they are now. In my opinion, in terms of valuation, they are far below where they should actually be.

OMG so much information

Yes, it has been a lot of information so far and yes there will come an end to this article — at least for now. If you enjoyed reading this, feel free to leave a nice comment and share the article. If there were other announcements that you found as fascinating as this one, share it in the comments. If you have anything else to share, once again, share it in the comment section below.

Thank you for reading!