Adbank Invite To The UN + AMA Q&A

Last week we had a great discussion on our weekly AMA including updates on beta, co-founder Kelsey Cole’s invitation to the UN (more exciting news around that in the near future), and major progress on our first acquisition.

Updates from the team this week:

• Marketing went through every screen on the Adbank network beta to adjust wording and placement of certain features.
• Dev team is wasting no time and is moving swiftly towards completion with no foreseeable delays.
• Adbank is now taking the final steps toward our first acquisition — some additional financial and operational due diligence is required before the deal is signed and funds are transferred.
• The company we are looking to acquire is one in an interesting niche that makes it a very suitable candidate to pilot new tech like ADB.
• Letter of Intent (LOI) signed, the M&A team is quickly moving to close the deal.

Submitted Questions:

[7:40] There is a lot of talk about the crypto market being in a bubble since many projects are valued at prices (have a market cap) that does not reflect what they have delivered on. Do you think ADB’s market cap is a fair reflection of what ADB has achieved so far?

In the long run, projects that achieve true utility with their tokens will win and that’s the game we’re in. Can’t speak to anything regarding market, price due to securities laws.

[8:40] When the platform is fully operational and we have advertisers and publishers utilizing the token, will a sudden drop in value of Ethereum or Bitcoin affect ADB negatively, positively or not at all? My sense is it should have no effect at all since the amount of ADB required to pay for a token may fluctuate but the USD equivalent should remain the same. Is this correct?

If the market moves, there will always be winners and losers. That’s no different for advertisers that hold our token.

[8:59] What are the future plans for marketing of AdBank?

Once platform is live we will have something to showcase. At that point we will execute our plans, including (but not limited to):

• Acquired network will get the ball rolling;
• Marketing to advertisers and publishers;
• Script for 5 15 second video spots are being created;
• Banner ads;
• Influencer campaigns lined up;

[12:40] Is Ryan Holmes the mystery adviser/strategic partner?

No.

[13:20] How did Dr. Fodé Tourés onboarding go? How soon he can be productive?

Fodé has settled in quickly and hit the ground running. He has assumed a leadership role with respect to beta development and will be a key part of the AI development. Given his background as a Ph.D in Computer Science with a specialty in Machine Learning, he is uniquely suited for the job. We are very fortunate to have him.

[14:20] When do we anticipate being on an exchange like HitBTC?

We cannot comment on exchange listings due to securities laws.

[14:45] What are your projected ad sales estimates either in ADB or USD for the upcoming stages of the platform? I.e. How much in volume will be required to run the system in the beta release?

We want to get to 100K a month in the next few months driven by true utility of the ADB token on the platform. We will leverage the lessons learned in that process to scale up from there.

[17:00] Could you tell us about the working & leading culture at Adbank? You guys work hard and the token holders are demanding a lot but I don’t want to see the project fail due to people getting burnouts.

We’re a real company with real employees and support staff to help the key players swinging in the strike zone. We are long term focused and part of that is ensuring our team has a level of balance that keeps them happy and productive.

[20:35] There is a big tech conference in Finland in the end of the year called Slush. One of the biggest and well known in the world. Would be great to see you guys there! Come and tell about the revolution!

Thanks for the heads up. We will look into that.

[21:00] Some say the days of bulk ad buying are slowly coming to an end and more and more advertisers are looking for more nimble solutions that allow for flexible ad campaigns. Do you agree with this and will the network you acquire cater to this — i.e. a demand side platform where bidding per impression can occur?

We are built to be anti-fragile. We know this world will continue to change and don’t believe any one organization is smart enough to build a single ad tech platform that is superior to everything else. We plan to be the payment layer that allows existing ad tech to thrive. More on that here.

[24:08] Does purchasing a niche ad network make it easier to convert existing publishers and advertisers to ADB?

Yes, absolutely. Some niches will be easier to convert than others and our first acquisition is a very suitable candidate for the first group to test a blockchain based ad platform.

[25:30] Does purchasing a niche ad network make it difficult to showcase Adbank’s software capabilities? I.e. The fact that it can support bidding. I ask because if a niche network is purchased won’t all the advertisers and publishers that sign up be specific to a niche making a bulk buy approach to an ad campaign still possible and just as effective as the more dynamic bidding approach for impressions?

Do you want a job? Great question and a fair point — we don’t have just one bullet in the chamber, this is the first step of multiple steps between now and what you describe. The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

[26:30] Last week Jon mentioned that once the platform is up and a network has been purchased, advertisers will be able to peg (i.e. choose a spot rate) the price at which they buy ADB to purchase an ad. This means that if today ADB costs 1 dollar a token and tomorrow it costs 10, an advertiser will always be able to purchase the same amount of ADB for the same amount of fiat there by i) reducing the need to use decimals to pay for ads as ADB’s value on the market increases, ii) cause the same amount of ADB to be purchased, say monthly, by the advertisers which drives transaction volume, and iii) continue to boost the value of the token for investors. Is this the win-win-win scenario you envision? If so, will the price of an ad on the publisher’s side also be pegged to the spot rate chosen by the advertiser? (Apologies for the long question)

Pegging the value of ADB to the US dollar is on the road map a longer way out. We wish we didn’t need to offer that but the adoption of crypto currency on a larger scale is still very low and we need a solution for companies that are more resistant to crypto at first to ease the transition process.

[28:00] Will the amount of ADB spent on the platform or ad network purchased count towards daily or monthly volume on coin market cap?

Yes.

Did you convert the cryptocurrency raised during the ICO into fiat?

Our runway looks good and for security reasons we will never discuss holdings.

[48:00] How will Adbank compete with the likes of Facebook and Google and if so, how will they compete?

Please read our article, Why Adbank Does Not Compete With Other Ad Networks. It will show you why we are creating the payment layer that will support existing ad networks so they can benefit from blockchain tech, address fraud and get additional benefits that can only be available to a blockchain-based ad platform.

[49:00] Where is the Gary Vaynerchuk video?

Angelo and Kelsey were featured in a recent Daily Vee episode (embedded below).

The video we have created with Angelo’s interview with Gary is being released the week of March 12.