AdEx (ADX) stands for “advertising exchange.” AdEx Coin is a blockchain-based marketplace for ads that aims to change the existing online advertising landscape and solve its major problems: ad fraud, privacy and consent to receive sponsored messages, etc. AdEx is fully transparent and built on the Ethereum Smart Contracts. AdEx is still in development, so it’s difficult to say much yet about it at this point. The original roadmap anticipated a beta release in February 2018. It remains to be seen if the team will meet that deadline. Future plans for version two of AdEx after launch focus on improving the user experience and scalability. AdEx has also expressed an interest in implementing a real-time bidding solution that could take place off-chain or on a high throughput network, like IOTA. AdEx raised $10 million in the first three hours of token sale. AdEx as a platform has room for a good amount of growth since digital advertising is a booming business anyway. But by eliminating flaws and continuing updates on its current platform, AdEx aims to stand firm in the near future.
Blue Whale Foundation, The Decentralized Ecosystem for the Self-Employed Blue Whale is set to rock the gig economy’s boat by building a decentralized ecosystem to allow freelancers and the self-employed to reap rewards and employment benefits from their contributions Against the backdrop of technological disruption and offshoring, the “gig/sharing economy” is burgeoning globally. Freelancers will make up a whopping 58% of the US workforce by 2027. Consequently, peer-to-peer booking platforms like AirBnB and Uber have seen a meteoric rise in demand accompanying these shifts in the job market. As the definition of work changes and evolves, the difficulties encountered by freelancers and part-time workers such as the lack of protection, and the insecurity of self-employment will only worsen. This not only affects the growing mass of freelancers, but also ruptures the social contract between workers and governments. Consumer protections have also weakened because of the murky legal relationship between freelancers and their host platforms. This simmering dissatisfaction has created popular backlash, as concerned governments in several countries such as France have begun to crack down on platforms like Uber and AirBnB. Despite these worrying trends, no workable remedy has been proposed - until now. The Blue Whale Foundation’s ICO is set to rock the boat of the gig/sharing economy by leveraging on blockchain as a service to provide freelancers with employment benefits such as paid-time-off, and retirement pensions traditionally available only to salaried employees.