How Alkimi is tokenising the $600bn digital ads market

Tangible Real-World Assets

Using blockchain to tokenise Real-World Assets (RWA) was one of the earliest attempts to bridge the worlds of tangible assets and the new digital economic era.  Initially, tokenisation applied to assets such as real estate and art or those that were difficult to obtain, like gold.

Token holders would own a token representing ownership of an RWA, either in whole or part. Utilising tokens made it easier for the co-ownership of RWAs while also availing token holders of other advantages of blockchain, such as transparency, security, and immutability.

As the digital era evolves, tokenisation has extended beyond these early use cases. Protocols like Solana, Provenance, Centrifuge, and Maple allow you to tokenise most physical assets and bring them onto the blockchain.  Further benefits exist for token holders, such as staking, liquidity pools, and yield-based initiatives.  At Alkimi, we have taken this initiative even further.

The Next Stage - Intangible Real-world Assets

Standing in the footsteps of giants, we have tokenised the value of the Digital Ad. Alkimi's ad exchange, the world's first fully decentralised ad exchange, launched the mainnet in December 2023 to expose token holders to the digital ad market, with a current value of $600 billion and predicted to reach nearly $1 trillion by 2028.

Ad exchanges facilitate the buying and selling of digital ads in real time. Google, The Trade Desk, Pubmatic, and others have dominated the industry. The industry has grown from extracting value from Advertisers and Publishers for using their services. Up to 47% of the Advertiser dollar is lost to intermediaries.

Alkimi mirrors the tangible RWA market by applying its foundational principles to the $600 billion digital advertising market by utilising a Layer 2 vertical app built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Alkimi Exchange represents a novel amalgamation of real-world asset tokenisation and the burgeoning world of decentralised finance.

Alkimi's Ad Explorer tokenises the yield generated by the buy- and sell-side fees and distributes it to token holders, turning each ad impression into a digitally recorded transaction.

A decentralised ad exchange provides multiple benefits over existing models. For publishers, broadcasters, and app developers, Alkimi's ad exchange is a highly efficient method of buying and selling ads. Alkimi gives full transparency over the bids and offers process while substantially reducing fee leakage to third parties by up to 212%. Publishers like News UK and Vice now receive more money for selling advertising space. At the same time, brands and media agencies like GroupM, Publicis, and IPG get more media for their money and are achieving above-standard KPIs.

This win-win is why Alkimi's ad exchange is already gaining traction with some of the world's biggest publishers and media providers. Our Ads Explorer tokenises the yield generated by the buy and sell side of Alkimi's Ad Exchange for token holders, turning each ad impression into a digitally recorded transaction logged on the Ads Explorer.

The benefits of tokenisation are both broad and significant. In most cases, the benefits for both tangible and intangible RWA's are the same:

• Asset exposure - Tokenisation allows investors to gain exposure to assets often unavailable to them with traditional finance methods (such as co-ownership of a piece of art, precious metals or digital advertising).
• Transparency - Blockchains are transparent and accessible to everyone. There are no hidden costs. There is a reduced need for third-party involvement, meaning real-time cost savings for all parties.
• Yield Generation - Tokens can be structured to replicate traditional yield through dividends, fixed-income returns, or guaranteed capital growth. However, DeFi's innovation allows token holders to access other yield generators, such as staking and liquidity pools. Staking and Liquidity Pools allow investors to tailor their investments to their needs.
• Market Dynamics and Liquidity - Tokenisation inherently increases market liquidity. Both traditional RWAs and digital ad slots become more easily tradable and accessible, catering to a broader base and allowing for more dynamic market conditions.

The Future?

Observing how traditional asset tokenisation influences and shapes the future of digital asset exchanges and vice versa will be fascinating as this space continues to evolve. The cross-pollination of ideas between these worlds signifies a new era of digital asset innovation, which holds great promise for the future of advertising and asset tokenisation. Alkimi is pioneering the tokenisation of a new category of intangible assets, the digital ad, with the largest publishers and advertisers in the $600 billion digital ad market.

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