Adexus
Empowering users, amplifying brands
Created on 24th October 2025
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Adexus
Empowering users, amplifying brands
The problem Adexus solves
At BaseCamp 2025, Jesse Pollak framed the future as a ‘creator global economy’, a world where value flows directly to creators and users, not intermediaries. Adexus operationalizes that vision: brands pay only for verified actions, users receive instant on-chain rewards, and creators and referrers earn directly for attention and distribution. The result is a privacy-first, pay-for-performance ecosystem that scales the creator economy while protecting user data.
- Cuts out ad middlemen: Redirects brand budgets from platforms like Google/Meta to the actual people who engage.
- Rewards real attention: Users earn crypto for verifiable actions (watch, survey, share) with instant, on‑chain settlement.
- Privacy by design: Wallet‑based identity, no invasive profiling, and transparent campaign rules on-chain.
- Outcome‑based spend: Brands pay only for completed actions, not impressions or clicks.
Use it to:
- Launch action‑based campaigns with clear payouts.
- Verify engagement on-chain and track progress transparently.
- Reward communities fairly while protecting user privacy.
Challenges I ran into
- Proof‑of‑engagement without PII: Balancing verification and privacy is hard. I scoped the alpha to deterministic actions (video view + quiz/share) and anchored completion with on‑chain events and nonces to prevent obvious replay.
- Sybil resistance and double‑claims: Early tests exposed multi‑claim attempts; I tightened contract checks and added simple allowlist/one‑claim‑per‑wallet rules in the flow.
- Wallet + network in embedded webviews: Standard wallet flows broke in mini‑app contexts; I used a custom wagmi config, explicit network switching, and client‑only wrappers to stabilize UX.
- IPFS reliability: Intermittent reads across gateways; I added pinning, status checks, and backoff to keep metadata dependable.
- Reentrancy and fund safety: Adopted OpenZeppelin guards and defensive patterns in the CampaignRegistry to keep payouts safe.
Link to the GitHub Repo of your project
Live URL of your project
What is your product’s unique value proposition?
- Direct user payouts for verified actions: Ad dollars go straight to humans, not ad-tech tolls.
- Privacy‑safe, on‑chain transparency: Rules, budgets, and completions are auditable without exposing personal data.
- Built for social distribution: Frictionless campaign discovery and sharing inside the social surface where users already are.
- Composable and extensible: Open template (contracts + app + IPFS) brands can fork, audit, and evolve.
Alpha proof:
- Deployed on Base testnet with a working CampaignRegistry.
- Create → engage → complete → payout loop demonstrated with on‑chain events and IPFS‑pinned metadata.
- Real‑time status components for blockchain/IPFS validate transparency end‑to‑end.
Who is your target customer?
- Consumer brands and growth teams seeking measurable, privacy‑safe engagement with lower CAC.
- Web3‑native protocols/creators rewarding communities for authentic actions.
- Agencies and community marketers running repeatable, action‑based campaigns.
Who are your closest competitors and how are you different?
- Brave Rewards (BAT)
- Galxe Quests
- Layer3
- RabbitHole
- Zealy
- Web2 baselines: Google Ads, Meta Ads
How we're different:
- Payouts at the protocol layer: On‑chain action completion → instant user reward; not points or off‑chain IOUs.
- Privacy‑first: Wallet‑centric, zero invasive profiling; no shadow targeting.
- Brand‑owned rails: Open, forkable template—no platform lock‑in; campaigns remain portable and auditable.
- Social‑native distribution: Campaigns spread peer‑to‑peer where communities already engage, reducing acquisition friction.
What is your distribution strategy and why?
- Community‑led activation: Launch inside high‑intent social channels; reward early participants to seed liquidity of attention.
- Ecosystem partnerships: Co‑market with Base, infra (IPFS/Pinata), and wallet providers to reach crypto‑native users efficiently.
- Brand/agency pilots: Run outcome‑based pilots with clear case studies (CPA, completion rate, retention).
- Templates + playbooks: Publish forkable campaigns and GTM guides to lower setup time and drive bottoms‑up adoption.
- Hackathons/workshops: Hands‑on sessions produce real campaigns and feedback loops fast.
Why it fits:
- Our audience values transparency, composability, and measurable ROI; community channels and ecosystem partners amplify trust and speed.
Discussion
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