Product Launch Links: ClearCoin’s platform is currently live at https://platform.clearcoin.co/ and the Explorer is live at https://explorer.clearcoin.co/

The world’s M3 money supply has been estimated to be around $75 trillion. That would be the total amount of money in the entire world. There are estimates that go much higher when including money invested in derivatives. In 2017, we saw the crypto market peak just over $800 billion. Based on that figure, perhaps we could say that the crypto market cap reached 1% of the world’s M3 money supply in 2017. As of this writing, the crypto market cap has come back to ~$250 billion which would represent less than .5% of the world’s M3 money supply. There’s a long way to go for the “internet of money” and the following quote sums it up.

We are fortunate to have found publishers that are willing to exclusively accept the XCLR token as payment for selling ads to ad buyers (transacting with these publishers is pending integration). The strength of our network will lie in greater numbers of advertisers and publishers adopting the token for media and ad buying. It’s worth noting the token can find many other uses as our scope of products grows over the years. The largest tech companies in the world today have used their leverage in one area to enter other areas. We’re in too early of stage to say we’re in the same class as those large cap tech companies because we are not in the same class yet. However, the long term future of the company allows us to leverage one area to approach other markets. Even with that said, there is plenty of adoption work for us to do in the multi billion dollar ad market and that will be our main focus for the foreseeable future.

Earlier in this post, we highlighted that the crypto market cap may have reached 1% of the world’s M3 money supply. With that heuristic, we could argue that a company bringing blockchain or a specialized utility token to a new market has a 1% opportunity for penetration in that market as a whole. Ad Age reports global spending on media and marketing to be at $1 trillion in 2018 so we believe we’re playing in a significant market. The more that a company can integrate with the emerging crypto ecosystem, it may be able to find greater value for itself by aligning with crypto focused companies. Like all industries, a great part of our industry works in traditional fiat currency. We have an opportunity to accept the clients that are using the fiat model but our main focus is growing the network of advertisers and publishers that use XCLR. For our managed services offering, we have previously highlighted a number of ad exchanges that we can bid on for our fiat paying managed services clients. The majority of the current managed services offering is built in the fiat model of doing business. The majority of our company’s focus will be building adoption for XCLR (more than 90%). Working with the existing ecosystem that uses fiat will allow us to inform established companies of the ongoing growth of the “decentralized web” and the ad buying solutions we offer in that ecosystem using XCLR.

The above should provide clarity on how we are bringing together the existing way of doing business with the new way of doing business. We see this as a positive as it allows us to merge proven markets with emerging markets in order to create long term growth and sustainability for all involved. After all, our supporters want to see the growth of the network we are creating. With the alignment of interest in growing the network that uses XCLR, we seek out opportunities that we believe will grow that network. Growth of the network is the biggest area of focus. The publishers that accept XCLR tokens will do so using a smart contract that has been designed by our technology team. The smart contract releases payment to the publisher upon delivery of the ad. Having worked as an advertising executive for many years myself, I am aware that the industry often has a 90 day gap in payment to publishers. Perhaps smart contracts will change this. Change happens over time but ultimately the best way of doing business should prevail.

The first version of the ClearCoin smart contract governs transactions between ad buyers and sellers. The smart contract code can be viewed on Etherscan at this link and the first line item that was created can be viewed on Etherscan at this link. Bear in mind, the smart contract is likely to be updated over time as needs of network participants (advertisers & publishers) become more defined. Any smart contract entered into prior to a smart contract update would be governed by the previous smart contract. The code for the first version of the smart contract is pasted below.

pragma solidity ^0.4.24; contract ClearCoinAdExchange { /* * Events */ event lineItemActivated(address indexed wallet); event lineItemDeactivated(address indexed wallet); event adSlotActivated(address indexed wallet); event adSlotDeactivated(address indexed wallet); event clickTracked(address indexed lineItem, address indexed adSlot); address owner; constructor() public { owner = msg.sender; } modifier onlyOwner { require( msg.sender == owner, "Only owner can call this function." ); _; } function changeOwner(address new_owner) public onlyOwner { owner = new_owner; } /* * Demand-side (Advertiser) */ struct LineItem { uint256 budget; // when XCLR is transferred to this line item, it's budget increases; eventually the publisher will get paid from the budget string destination_url; // clicks on creative point here uint256 max_cpc; // maximum XCLR willing to spend for CPC (Cost Per Click) [8 decimals] uint256 max_daily_spend; // maximum XCLR to spend per 24 hours [8 decimals] uint256 creative_type; // (1,2,3) => leaderboard (728x90), skyscraper (120x600), medium rectangle (300x250) uint256[] categories; // (1,2,3,4,etc) => (Automotive, Education, Business, ICO, etc) bool active; } // all line items // costs are charged from this address as XCLR // think of it as the control for Max Lifetime Spend, but you can always top-up with more XCLR // also an identifier for the creative URI mapping (address => LineItem) line_items; modifier lineItemExists { require( line_items[msg.sender].active, "This address has not created a line item." ); _; } function createLineItem( string destination_url, uint256 max_cpc, uint256 max_daily_spend, uint256 creative_type, uint256[] categories ) public { line_items[msg.sender] = LineItem({ budget: 0, destination_url: destination_url, max_cpc: max_cpc, max_daily_spend: max_daily_spend, creative_type: creative_type, categories: categories, active: true }); emit lineItemActivated(msg.sender); } function deactivateLineItem() public lineItemExists { line_items[msg.sender].active = false; emit lineItemDeactivated(msg.sender); } function activateLineItem() public lineItemExists { line_items[msg.sender].active = true; emit lineItemActivated(msg.sender); } /* * Supply-side (Publisher) */ struct AdSlot { string domain; // domain name of website uint256 creative_type; // (1,2,3) => leaderboard (728x90), skyscraper (120x600), medium rectangle (300x250) uint256 min_cpc; // minimum XCLR willing to accept to display ad uint256[] categories; // (1,2,3,4,etc) => (Automotive, Education, Business, ICO, etc) uint256 avg_ad_quality; // reputation of this AdSlot (updated by algorithm that considers NHT% and number of historical clicks) bool active; } // all ad slots // costs are paid out to these addresses as XCLR mapping (address => AdSlot) ad_slots; modifier adSlotExists { require( ad_slots[msg.sender].active, "This address has not created an ad slot." ); _; } function createAdSlot( string domain, uint256 creative_type, uint256 min_cpc, uint256[] categories ) public { ad_slots[msg.sender] = AdSlot({ domain: domain, creative_type: creative_type, min_cpc: min_cpc, categories: categories, avg_ad_quality: 100, // starts at 100% by default active: true }); emit adSlotActivated(msg.sender); } function deactivateAdSlot() public adSlotExists { ad_slots[msg.sender].active = false; emit adSlotDeactivated(msg.sender); } function activateAdSlot() public adSlotExists { ad_slots[msg.sender].active = true; emit adSlotActivated(msg.sender); } // only owner can submit tracked clicks (from ad server) function trackClick(address line_item_address, address ad_slot_address) public onlyOwner { emit clickTracked(line_item_address, ad_slot_address); } }

The token migration that took place in May to June 2018 unexpectedly consumed our technology resources. The consumption of those technology resources was about two weeks. As such, in the next two weeks we will be getting caught up on key elements of the ad platform and block explorer. While the smart contract exists for the relationship between advertiser and publisher, there are some finishing touches that will need to go on the ad server. Our support team will assist any issues and they can always be reached at help@clearcoin.co

We’re in a stage of releasing Minimum Viable Products (MVP). The concept of MVP’s were popularized in software with the realization the first version should be functional enough to start getting feedback from users so that it can head in the right direction based on what customers want. That is contrary to the idea that major development goes in first only to find out customers are looking for something else. What you are seeing today is only the beginning and the greater details will be added in the weeks and months to come. Any feedback that you may have can be sent to our team by emailing help@clearcoin.co

Below are some screenshots from the products we have been working on and some details about where they might go in the future. Bear in mind, the Explorer still has millions of more pieces of data to sync that it gets from the Ethereum blockchain. The Explorer is listed as an end of 2018 release on the roadmap so it is very much in a beta mode. We are aiming to rapidly iterate on products based on important feedback from customers and users. Some block explorers have reached tens of millions page views per month making them important arbiters of media in the crypto economy. The media served on crypto focused sites represent the beginnings of the foundation for the messages flowing through the crypto economy. This is an important area for us to explore.