Thrive - A Blockchain based Ad Marketplace

The field of internet advertisements is currently dominated by the platforms owned by the big players like Google AdSense. And while AdSense, no doubts, is a high-level, sophisticated ad platform, it has some aspects that make both advertisers and publishers frustrated and worried. First, the algorithms Google uses when choosing where to place the advertisements are somewhat opaque, and advertisers cannot predict with certainty where their ads will end up. There was a situation with YouTube when ads were placed on the pages, containing disturbing and extremist videos. After that incident, a number of major brands withdrew from Google advertising programs altogether. For publishers, placing ads on their websites and blogs, AdSense is problematic for another reason. It's quite difficult to make a sustainable profit off ads to begin with, but with AdSense publishers also need to comply with numerous rules that constantly change. In fact, anybody trying to make a living off ads using AdSense platform always faces a risk of being penalized or outright banned without warning or explanation. This is what happened in 2014 to Idris Sami, a French-Moroccan entrepreneur, after the messaging platform he developed reached huge popularity, and Sami accumulated $46,000 on his Google account. Soon after that his AdSense account was blocked, and he lost all the money earned from advertisements. In addition, AdSense takes a significant cut of ad revenues, that accounts to 32% - 49%.

Thrive is a blockchain startup trying to create an ad marketplace that would address both advertisers' concerns regarding the placement of their ads that wouldn't result in damaging of their brand, as well as publishers' interest in getting stable ad revenues without facing the threat that at any moment their profits might be jeopardized at the whim of the ads platform. Thrive is intended to implement the transparent principles of ad placement, with advertisers having full control of where their ads will be featured. The websites, comprising the Thrive ecosystem, will be selected based on reviews, assessing their quality. The reviews will be made by the platform participants, who will also be rewarded for their contribution. Publishers, in turn, according to the company's claim, will be able to earn on Thrive platform significantly more than they currently can make using AdSense. Another aspect the Thrive project is planning to address is the information collected from users visiting the sites, containing the ads placed via Thrive network. That information can be valuable for marketing purposes and statistics, and the company's proposition is that users should be able to control that data and get monetary compensation for sharing it. The platform is based on blockchain and uses platform-specific THRT utility tokens to conduct all the operations.

Starting from February 15, 2018, Thrive will conduct Token Generation Event with the total supply of 200,000,000 THRT tokens. The company expects to raise 27,500,000 EUR.