Rubicon Project, Integral Ad Science, MediaMath, Underscore CLT join Mindshare, Zilliqa for blockchain alliance

Integral Ad Science; a global software firm developing analytics, optimization and verification solutions; MediaMath, a leading independent programmatic firm for marketers, Rubicon Project, one of the world’s largest advertising exchanges, and Underscore CLT, a developer of cryptographic ledger technologies to power real business solutions for marketers and their partners, have joined global media planning and buying agency Mindshare and blockchain platform Zilliqa in creating the first prototype of the programmatic blockchain alliance Mindshare and Zilliqa are creating to research blockchain technology’s application in the advertising ecosystem. 

According to a press release CoinReport received from Elevator Communications, Zilliqa’s PR agency, the alliance plans to practically evaluate the blockchain technology’s applicability into the advertising world, where billions of impressions are viewed online, by trying out two important components of the tech. – one to arrive at the right consensus protocol and the other on the throughput.  

The alliance includes several firms in the programmatic advertising supply chain, including publishers, data management platforms, demand side platforms, independent verification firms, advertisers, trading desks, supply side platforms and advertising agencies. If needed, there is also the possibility of including key industry experts or opinion leaders.

The prototype – “Project Proton” – plans to enhance the present programmatic advertising ecosystem by offering a way for all the stakeholders across the value chain to network in a secure and verifiable way via smart contracts on a high throughput blockchain. This makes it suitable for the enterprise-level application of the project for all the associates engaged in a transparent way so that all the actors in the ecosystem are able to have full confidence in each other enabling the complete programmatic ad space to flourish.

Zilliqa and Mindshare announced a collaboration last year to develop blockchain applications for the digital advertising industry. Project Proton is the first stage of this association that will assess how Zilliqa’s blockchain protocol can address some of this technology’s possible applications to the advertising industry. The news release that we received says findings can be expected before the end of the year.   

Mindshare AMENA chief development officer Gowthaman Ragothaman said, “We are absolutely delighted and thankful to have MediaMath, IAS, Rubicon Project and Underscore CLT partner with us on this project with Zilliqa. There are many claims and speculations on the applicability of this technology to our business. Project Proton is designed to test this, particularly in the areas of building consensus and managing high throughput.”

Image via a press release on exchange4media