Blockchain marketing news in July 2019

Once again this month, Libra is stealing the show in our newsletter.

After a big announcement and even bigger promises to make Libra a revolutionary global payments system, this month has seen more skepticism and negative context around the Facebook project.

First of all, a parallel has been drawn between bitcoin and Libra, where all the points go to, you guessed it well, bitcoin. While bitcoin operates on decentralised blockchain technology, Facebook’s Libra is basically a centralized structure controlled by Facebook and other companies that can buy their voting rights in Libra association.

An even bigger issue is how Libra would fit into financial regulations or how Facebook could guarantee security and privacy to its users, especially considering its recent history of privacy scandals that have greatly damaged its reputation.

No wonder everybody seems to hate Libra and if this sounds a little bit harsh, it’s not us, it’s the actual title of the Bloomberg article.

Truth be told, no one is quite sure how this will develop. We will just have to put Libra's story aside (for now) and mention some other interesting events that happened last month.

Big companies like McDonald’s, Nestlé and Virgin Media have joined a new blockchain pilot seeking to increase transparency in their online advertising. The New York Times is using blockchain-based technology to fight fake news and Google is dipping its toes into smart contracts.

With all the major players already investing into blockchain, we couldn’t help but ask, how long will it be before it is deployed everywhere?

News and Reports

McDonald’s, Nestlé and Virgin Media trial blockchain in media buys

Three major brands McDonald’s, Nestlé and Virgin Media are among first to join the blockchain pilot run by JICWEBS (Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards), a U.K. cross-industry body working to improve digital ad trading. The aim of this pilot is to measure the impact of blockchain solutions on advertising spend, and increase trust, transparency and efficiency in digital advertising.

Brave Expands Advertising Platform to Mobile Devices and Launches Brave Ads Certified Vendor Program

Blockchain based-browser Brave, the first advertising platform built on privacy, is expanding its digital advertising program to mobile devices and rewarding users with 70% revenue generated by those ads. This innovative approach to digital advertising is already getting good feedback from both advertisers and users, and we can expect to hear more about this startup shortly.

The New York Times Using Hyperledger Fabric to Fight Fake News

The rise of disinformation and fake news is one of the biggest challenges for digital media. But blockchain could be the solution to this problem. According to Cointelegraph, The New York Times (NYT) is in the first phase of testing blockchain technology to “fight misinformation in the media and guarantee the provenance of digital files.”

Features and Interviews

Blockchain Marketing Tips and Tricks

Lasting Trend Media, a New York-based advertising agency, has compiled a list of blockchain marketing strategies that could be useful for any marketer looking for different approaches and ideas in this relatively new industry. They suggest that quality and educational content is one of the pillars of successful blockchain marketing, and we couldn’t agree more.

How Ethical Advertising Will Transform the Blockchain Industry

Although this article is an explicit advertisement for CodeFund, it is exactly a piece of content that comes to mind when we talk about great blockchain marketing material. It has an appealing and suggestive title, it informs and educates readers about some problems (ethical challenges) that blockchain advertising is facing and it offers a solution in the form of a product it is advertising. Everything that good marketing content needs.

What Is Blockchain in Marketing? Strategies, Best Practices, Benefits and Examples

As the headline suggests, this article is another educational piece that covers some of the basic concepts of blockchain in marketing. What distinguishes this article from the sea of blockchain marketing sameness is that for every marketing strategy they suggest, they offer an example of successful blockchain practices to support their view.

Industry opinions

Bitcoin vs Libra: Here are the key differences between the two cryptocurrencies

After the hype about the Libra announcement last month (which we exhaustively covered in our June’s newsletter), you probably get some basic concepts of what Libra is and how it is going to work. This article, however, will give you some greater insight into key differences between Bitcoin and Libra and what some of the most respectable crypto minds have to say about this Facebook’s new project.

We still don’t know how much of Libra Facebook owns

After they published the most comprehensive guide to Libra last month, TechCrunch continues to investigate all the dilemmas and concerns about this cryptocurrency project. It is still not clear “how much Facebook has already sunk into the Libra project, how much it expects to be repaid and on what schedule” which raises bigger concern on “how decentralized and altruistic this project really is?”

Why (Almost) Everybody Hates Facebook’s Cryptocurrency Libra

This Bloomberg piece shares the same concern that was brought out by TechCrunch article, but also mentions some of the other problems and criticism that Libra project is facing. These are security and privacy issues, dependability and regulatory concerns, competition in the cryptocurrency market and many other affairs that leave many questions unanswered.

Is Google Chasing The 90% Potential Of Blockchain That Facebook Left Out?

This Forbes article taps in the recent partnership between Google and Chainlink, a decentralized network that is based on smart contract technology. Sergey Nazarov, Chainlink CEO says that only 10-20% of financial contracts are about ownership and transfer. The other 80-90% is an unexploited potential of blockchain technology, something that’s Google probably trying to be a part of.

And finally...

Donald Trump Gave Bitcoin A Boost, But The Presidential Spotlight Could Prove Harsh For Crypto

Us President Donald Trump has used Twitter to address his opinion on bitcoin, Libra, and other cryptocurrencies, saying that they are “unregulated assets with no innate value or use cases other than to support illicit activity”. While many believe that this negative publicity will actually give more credibility to the crypto market, this Forbes article suggests a more restrained approach.