9 blockchain-based ventures that either are or might evolve into a video-driven endeavour

As the diversity of content monetisation models shows, there is no consensus as to whether advertising is an essential piece of the business model or not: some fiercely defend it, while others choose to avoid it at any cost. Blockchain-based businesses that either are or might evolve into a video-driven endeavour can be classified according to their expressed view towards this issue:

AdChain is an Ethereum-based blockchain technology aimed at “significantly changing the way advertisers and publishers operate their supply chains and exchange ad impressions”. Blockchain “is used 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”, which plagues the digital advertising industry.

AdBit is an operational “Bitcoin & blockchain empowered ad network working with a ‘Smart Bid Auction’ and a real-time payment system”, in a completely transparent fashion to advertisers and publishers.

HubDSP is an operational demand-side platform (DSP) “that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one interface”.

A snapshot of Mass.Network browser plugin.

Mass Network is a “decentralised DMP” that allows users to monetise their traffic and behavioural data as much as they wish to, through a browser plugin that blocks ads as default.

Brave is an open source, “privacy-focused browser that blocks malvertisements […] and contains a ledger system that anonymously captures user attention to accurately reward publishers”. Basic Attention Token is the tokenised “unit of exchange between publishers, advertisers and users, derived from — or denominated by — user attention”.

Livepeer is a project that aims to deliver “a cryptoeconomically incentivized protocol and open media server for live video broadcasting, resulting in a cheaper, more scalable, and more decentralized live streaming solution than exists today”.

SingularDTV is “a blockchain entertainment studio, smart contract rights management platform and video on-demand portal” that has successfully fund itself through an ICO in 2016 and is under stealth mode development.

A screenshot of Qrator, Synereos’s attention economy first application.

Synereo is “developing a series of tools designed to merge into a fully decentralised social network, further generalised into a universal, distributed computation platform. While the road is long, it is paved with applications offering functioning, real-world solutions that utilize AMPs, Synereo’s cryptocurrency, and provide them with backing”.

Steem is an operational “blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards”, that has paid out more than one million dollars to its contributors.

Comparing the amount of funding and traction in 9 blockchain-based projects. Some values are estimated, specially for funding.

Of course, these 9 projects are at very different stages. A way of visualising this is by plotting them in a matrix according to their traction and funding. Most of our 9 picks are low-funded and haven’t gained much traction yet. On the right side of the chart, 4 outliers: Steemit, top-right, privately-funded, has +100K registered accounts and a market cap of dozens of millions of dollars. Brave, founded by father of the Mozilla Foundation and inventor of the Javascript, has generous private funding and a large user base to pave a market for its upcoming cryptocurrency. SingularDTV has raised U$7.5 million on its crowdsale and its on its development track with a growing community. Synereo has raised +4 million dollars and, after time consuming internal problems, recently began releasing its applications.

Another way to compare this range of initiatives is by looking at more structural aspects, such as code orientation (from product to platform), governance mechanisms (from fully centralised to fully decentralised) and funding (from crowd equity to institutional equity). The matrix below draws inspiration from Doug Petkanic’s Token Powered Structural Rubix Cube: