December 6, 2017 UPDATE: Cointraffic.io rep has reached out to us with clarification regarding this Cointraffic.io review. We have corrected some of the information on this page, indicating the corrected parts [in brackets in bold] .

Cointraffic.io was used and reviewed by many Bitcoin-related websites as a decent advertising platform to monetize their sites. The back-end was and sleek and the ads funky (even though most were shitty ICOpumps and outright scams).

Cointraffic.io used to be anonymous [Cointraffic.io rep: “CoinTraffic never claimed to be an anonymous company”] just like Bitcoin itself, but in the end of October 2017 they have locked their back-end behind an ID verification wall:

They claim:

CoinTraffic is rapidly growing and in order for you to feel safe, we would like to regulate our interaction with you as our publisher.

No Cointraffic.io, I don’t feel safe having to send my ID and selfie over to you .[It appears that ID scans are NOT necessary (as of December 2017) – company rep claims name & address is all they need.] This is Bitcoin space, and one would assume anonymity is just bon ton standard. Alas, not for this advertising network.

Interestingly enough, their blog has no mention of the change:

Moreover, that authwall says:

Terms and Conditions need to be accepted by 31.10.2017, otherwise your account will be blocked and you won’t be able to continue using our services.

It’s November first and I still get asked to accept Terms. I guess rules are created to be broken and you still need publishers?

Now being locked out of my account all I can do is either “accept terms” and start the verification process, or reject terms, have my earnings paid out and account closed.

Let’s click on to the Terms to review, imagine I’d want to accept them:

Previously Cointraffic was supposedly a French entity, [that link has false information according to the company reps] but right now they are incorporated in Estonia as per their terms, and Coinmedia OÜ is the company name. The company board member listed Sergei Verbitski is associated with “144 more entries in Estonia (including a company CHICKEN BUCKET OÜ):

so he’s probably some power of attorney director that the company founders are using to protect their own privacy [Cointraffic.io reps: “This is clearly false information. Sergei Verbitski has more than 10+ years in online marketing and is well known in the community”. From the second database it does look like he’s just having those 3 companies, but the listings are there and we’ll leave them for you to make a judgement.]

Should I just input a fake name and adress and see if the system swallows that? That would probably work, but that’s too much. [The company rep has confirmed this: “CoinTraffic do not request to send a scan of ID or other documents upon registration of an account. Publishers are working with us as before” – which means that they do not ask for ID scans yet and any info you put in the fields would work]

I believe all things cryptocurrency could be promoting good will and bona fide relationships being anonymous at the same time. Most of the ads the network was serving were some questionable ICOs anyway – the stuff you see as the dropdown banner @ coinmarketcap, e.g.:

Considering how skeptical CoinVigilance is towards ICOs, running BS ads like these is definitely not worth the hassle of submitting my ID to someone somewhere. [Again, no need for an ID yet, we were wrong here – just the name and address. Using a real or fake name is up to you.]

So – good luck, Cointraffic.io.

P.S. As I clicked “withdraw commission & close account” the “we’re sorry to see you go” window says my commission withdrawal is pending – but there is no link to a transaction ID. The whole Cointraffic.io operation seems very much unlike any other Blockchain-based business, take that for a Cointraffic.io review: [To be fair, all commissions were paid out.]

P.P.S. A-Ads.Com are actually truly anonymous ads. I’m not sure about the amount of advertisers but they work as they should – without any questions.

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