Blockchain marketing news in February 2020

Another month has rolled on by, and we are pleased to inform you that February didn’t let us down. Among the sea of the same 2020 blockchain prediction stories that are still clogging our newsfeed and fighting for easy clicks (we get it, 2020 is a big year for blockchain), we picked for you 10 most interesting and diverse news that are worth your attention.

Top of the news headlines is blockchain adoption by one of the world's most popular football clubs - Barcelona. They are launching blockchain tokens to engage more with their fans, and speaking about great marketing strategy, this kind of mindset is what separates winners from all the others. Also, there has been some buzzing about a decentralized social media called Voice, the one that will pay you “to do good” and speak the truth(ful content).

Another blockchain player that pays you to watch ads, privacy-oriented browser Brave, is fighting for user’s data protection and against Google’s advertising monopoly, well, at least in the UK. Can this be a David vs. Goliath scenario? We will have to wait and see.

For now though, you can go through our features and opinion sections, and check some of the most successful practical applications of blockchain technology in the advertising industry and fairly new concepts that could shake the foundation of Link Building and SEO.

And finally, we saved the best for the last, as On The Brink with Castle Island podcast with Balaji Srinivasan is one of those rare pieces of crypto content that manages to push through the FUD and provide a really exciting vision of the future.

Not bad for the shortest month of the year.

News and Reports

This Social Network Wants to Pay You (in Crypto) to Do Good

This is one bombastic title for only a beta version of blockchain-based social media application Voice. The idea behind it is to pay users with tokens for watching or clicking ads, which they can later use to boost their posts or comments. The good part is, they say, this will encourage people to “post quality content”.

Barça and blockchain platform Chiliz join forces for new global alliance to increase interaction with fans

FC Barcelona has signed a partnership agreement with the sports and entertainment blockchain platform Chiliz to create a Barça Fan Tokens. This tokens will reward fan’s engagement and “can be exchanged for exclusive merchandise and unique once-in-a-lifetime experiences linked to Barça.”

Brave Challenges Google’s Advertising Power Before the UK Competition Watchdog

In some of our previous newsletters, we already mentioned privacy-oriented browser Brave and its viable option to compete with mainstream internet browsers such as Google. It seems that the game is on as Brave now urges U.K. Authorities to end Google’s advertising monopoly that is based on giant’s “unfair data advantage.”

Libra Minus Facebook: Why Celo Is 2020’s Buzzy Token Project

We haven’t even managed to wrap our head around the Libra story, and there is already a new crypto project that is shaking the crypto community. Celo, CLab’s pure blockchain-based financial service is aiming to link the unbanked across the globe and become “Whatsapp for money”, as their main investor has pointed out.

Features and Interviews

11 Ways Blockchain Will Forever Change Link Building and SEO

Although most of this article covers the same old benefits of blockchain marketing adoption such as transparency, authentication and less ad fraud, it also mentions some fairly new concepts that are worth our attention. Smart links could be the next big thing for link building and SEO, and if you haven’t heard about it yet, don’t worry, they are still in the early stages of development.

Blockchain in Advertising

Much of the discussion about blockchain is uncertain and future-focused, but this article from MarTech Cube explores the practical applications of blockchain and how some of the pioneers in the industry (e.g. Adbank, BLADE, adChain) are already changing the advertising landscape. “ Instead of predicting the future, fast movers are making it happen.”

Industry opinions

Can blockchain deliver on its big advertising promises?

Blockchain is increasingly gaining popularity in the adtech world, but its widespread adoption still seems like a distant future. We all knew that, and this is the bottom line of this article but its volume and comprehension will pin-point some of the most interesting events, applications and limitations of blockchain adoption in the advertising sector.

How blockchain will dominate the digital advertising industry in 2020

It is the end of February but big blockchain predictions for 2020 are still attracting a lot of attention. Some of them are real, some of them are highly unlikely to happen in the next 10 months but this article offers an interesting overview of all the advances of blockchain technology and some of the most successful stories of blockchain-powered ad solutions.

Why Blockchain Won’t Fix Digital Advertising’s Biggest Problems - Yet

Here is one more opinion piece on how blockchain is not ready YET to revolutionize digital advertisement. Blockchain technology is “still far from prepared to manage the vast amount of data that digital media generates”. However, there’s still a positive ending to this story as “blockchain adoption in the media industry is inevitable”.

And Finally...

Balaji Srinivasan on building digital commonwealths

We finish this month’s newsletter with an interesting podcast with Balaji Srinivasan, a man who needs no introduction in the crypto circles. He shared his thought on the distinction between 'sovereign collective' and sovereign individual, will decentralized Twitter become a functioning digital commonwealth and what he is trying to achieve with the new crypto journal - nakamoto.com.