AdEx in 2024: Setting the Stage for the Next Big Leap

2024 was a year of significant milestones and exciting innovations for AdEx. We relaunched the AdEx platform with a stronger focus on advertisers, enabling them to reach previously untapped audiences while also developing groundbreaking technology behind the scenes. Alongside this, we hosted three dynamic Web3 marketing-focused events, updated our staking portal, and made strides in improving the AdEx ecosystem.

As the year comes to a close, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and even more thrilled about what’s ahead. AdEx is gearing up to take a bold new direction which will be announced soon, thus expanding far beyond advertising into a larger and more ambitious vision.

2024 in review

So much happened in 2024 - check out our summary below of the most important achievements:

AdEx advertiser platform re-launch

One of our biggest milestones this year was launching the new and improved AdEx platform. Built with advertisers in mind, the updated platform focuses on delivering optimized campaigns and expanding reach to untapped Web3 audiences. This transformation into an advertiser-only programmatic demand-side platform (DSP) allows us to fully prioritize advertisers’ needs and leverage programmatic advertising to connect brands with new audiences, driving awareness and onboarding users to grow the Web3 ecosystem.

To deliver high-quality publisher inventory and expand access to these audiences, AdEx partnered with two leading supply-side platforms (SSPs), Epom and Eskimi. These partnerships provide access to millions of publishers across diverse website categories, offering global web and in-app traffic at scale.

Alongside the platform launch, AdEx successfully initiated campaigns for prominent names such as Ambire Wallet, BitStarz, CEX.io, and Stremio, achieving impressive results and showcasing the platform's potential. These campaigns highlighted the platform’s ability to drive impactful outcomes for advertisers, reinforcing its value as a key player in the evolving Web3 advertising ecosystem.

Optimizations for performance and user experience

This year, the AdEx platform underwent significant optimizations to enhance performance, scalability, and usability. We achieved a 7x increase in backend capacity, enabling effortless handling of heightened traffic demands and ensuring faster response times - critical for programmatic advertising success. Transitioning to a more robust database infrastructure further strengthened scalability and operational reliability.

In parallel, we refined our campaigns through data-driven optimizations, such as publisher category matching, to improve ad relevance and deliver greater value to both advertisers and publishers. Continuous UX and UI enhancements introduced new features and targeting options, streamlining the platform’s interface and improving the overall user experience.

Additionally, we upgraded the platform's statistics, making them more detailed and intuitive to analyze, empowering users with actionable insights to drive better results. These efforts collectively reinforce AdEx's commitment to providing a seamless, high-performance advertising solution.

Embracing AI and Zero-Knowledge technology

2024 was a big year for AI and zero-knowledge tech in the Web3 world. At AdEx, we’re convinced these technologies are the future, so we also started researching to see how they could improve our platform.

Smarter advertising with AI

AI has become integral to optimizing advertising processes, and AdEx has focused on three key areas in which AI can be helpful: budget allocation, fraud prevention, and creative generation. By employing advanced deep learning algorithms, we’re developing adaptive systems that optimize targeting and budget allocation in real-time, ensuring advertisers achieve the best possible results. Our AI CPM Helper is an example of an already available feature, which is calculating and analysing data in real-time to provide insights into supply and pricing and help advertisers plan more effective campaigns.

Privacy-first optimization with ZK

We are actively developing zero-knowledge technology to help AdEx prioritize privacy without compromising ad targeting effectiveness. Our upcoming AdEx ZK targeting engine is designed to enable advertisers to reach precise audiences while strictly adhering to privacy standards.

With in-situ processing, essential ad-matching data will remain on the user’s device, eliminating the need for data transfers and ensuring full compliance with privacy laws. Users will have the option to select their preferred ad categories, creating a personalized experience while earning ADX tokens for their engagement. For those who choose not to opt in, contextual targeting will match ads to website content, ensuring relevance without relying on user data.

These advancements highlight how AI and ZK technologies are driving the evolution of AdEx, combining optimization, privacy, and user-centric solutions to build a future-ready advertising ecosystem.

Upgraded staking portal and extending rewards

Staking is a key part of the AdEx ecosystem, with over 55 million ADX tokens locked by our amazing community. This year, we gave the AdEx Staking Portal a brand-new look and fixed some UX issues to make it smoother and easier to use.

We also let the community take the lead on staking rewards through a governance vote. After two weeks of voting, stakers decided to halve the rewards to stretch the distribution period by another 12 months. It’s a great example of how the AdEx community works together to shape the platform’s future!

Exciting Web3 marketing-focused events

After last year’s Marketers Dinner at Devconnect in Istanbul, we took things to the next level in 2024 by organizing three larger-scale marketing events. We kicked things off with meet up and drinks at DappCon Berlin, followed by a brunch at EthCC in Brussels, and wrapped up with an amazing half-day Web3 Marketers Summit at Devcon in Thailand. It was a blast!

These events gave us the chance to meet incredible people, share valuable insights, and create a space where marketers can exchange ideas, knowledge, and network. We’re proud to be among the first to recognize the need for marketing-focused events in the Web3 space, and we’re excited to continue creating these opportunities. We’re already planning bigger and better events for next year.

Launched the AdEx Invictus RPC

In 2024, we introduced AdEx Invictus RPC - a high-performance reverse proxy designed for Ethereum and EVM RPC providers. It provides a single resilient endpoint that aggregates multiple RPC providers, offering features like failover, quorum support, prioritization, and load balancing.

Unlike relying on a single RPC provider, Invictus RPC enhances reliability and performance. Key features include automatic failover, which excludes down providers, and prioritization, allowing users to give preference to certain providers. It also enables remote configuration changes without the need for redeployment and includes failure detection to exclude providers with frequent issues. Additionally, Invictus RPC tracks the performance of different providers in real-world conditions, ensuring optimal service and reliability.

Developed the AdEx Relayer

This year, we developed the AdEx Relayer, an ERC-4337 bundler optimized for Ethereum but with broad network support. One of its standout features is the built-in paymaster service, which enables an innovative gas tank feature, allowing for cross-chain gas payments.

Currently available to select B2B clients, the AdEx Relayer has enormous potential that we believe is only just beginning to be explored. Stay tuned for more updates and details as we continue to unlock the full capabilities of this powerful tool.

Looking ahead

2024 has been a year of incredible advancements and growth for AdEx. From the re-launch and optimization of our ad platform and staking portal to hosting remarkable events and expanding our network, we’ve achieved great success. We’ve also developed cutting-edge technologies that are laying the foundation for an even more exciting future.

As we move into 2025, AdEx will be embarking on a new journey with a much larger scope and vision than just an ad network. We can’t wait to share more details with you soon. Stay tuned for what’s next!

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