Crypto

Blockchain Trends for 2018: The Hot Topics from 10 Experts

Last updated on May 8, 2018 by Mobidea Academy 12 min read

Table of Contents

Introduction

Blockchain is an amazing technology that is changing many businesses.

But what are the biggest blockchain trends you should know in 2018?

What are the most common mistakes you must avoid?

What are the best tips you can share about this topic and what’s the impact in affiliate marketing?

Don’t know?

No worries!

We’ve asked 10 amazing experts to offer their take on all these questions.

Now’s the time for you to check this out!

Blockchain in 2018: The Hot Topics

John Zanni, President of Acronis

“Blockchain will help to address several modern-day security concerns, including issues with contracts, identity, and fraud management.

Blockchain-based lists will help financial organizations and online retailers easily vet their customers and combat fraudulent activities.

Blockchain terminology will continue to evolve as well.

Industry players will focus on providing functional or architectural descriptions instead of relying on the term “blockchain.”

The Australian Securities Exchange, for example, avoided the word “blockchain” when announcing its deployment of a “distributed ledger technology” for clearing and settlement earlier this year, focusing on its functionality, rather than looking for popularity.

While the hype around the word “blockchain” will subside in the coming year, we’ll see major blockchain-inspired applications in healthcare, financial, insurance, and E-Commerce sectors.

Blockchain will become the default technology wherever there is a need to ensure the integrity of transactions or data.

When talking about blockchain, we can’t avoid Bitcoin and its recent hyper-growth.

For Bitcoin fans, it’s the new digital gold.

For Bitcoin deniers, it’s a bubble that’s bound to burst.

Any blockchain discussion has to mention the impact of Initial Coin Offerings (ICO).

In 2017, there were more than 230 ICOs, which raised far more funds than from traditional venture capitalists in the blockchain space.

A number of highly publicized ICO scams also revealed a lack of industry regulation and the need for training and public education.”

Phillip Nagy, CEO at Winning Poker Network

“The biggest blockchain trend will be for corporates:

Custodial solutions.

The common mistakes?

Try to go for license and deploy in-house.

Why?

Because you want to be in control of your own wealth.

Third-party services are few and expensive.

The best tip I can share is that – when deploying cryptocurrency custodial solutions in-house – you have to bring your treasury people on board.

Process is as important as technology.

When it comes to the impact of blockchain in affiliate marketing, the first application is in the realm of cryptocurrencies.

This will greatly reduce the frictions that currently exist due to the structure of the international payments system.

This will have a material impact on every industry from knowledge to entertainment.

Think about the entrepreneurs around the world who are still not able to promote ebooks, or their favorite Twitch streamer, because they are unbanked according to the standards of the traditional financial system.

Crypto comes to change all that.

The second mid-term implication has to do with the “tokenization” of attention:

It’s about finally bringing traceability and transparency to the market, and overcoming the limitations of cookie-based solutions.”

Aziz Bin Zainuddin, Founder and CCO of Master The Crypto

“I reckon that the biggest blockchain trend will be the incorporation of smart contracts into traditional businesses and systems.

Smart contracts represent a revolutionary innovation that will eliminate third parties and enhance the efficacy of contracts and systems through predefined codes.

Applications that can utilize smart contracts are infinite and can span across all industries such as real estate, identity verification, supply chain network, mortgage processing, etc.

Due to the revolutionary nature of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, it is financially attractive to invest in cryptos due to the potential of earning huge returns in a short amount of time.

A common mistake is investing in cryptocurrencies like you would in a casino.

What I mean is buying up coins without understanding the fundamentals of the coin.

Never ever invest in anything without performing your due diligence.

Here’s a guide that will help you perform your due diligence for cryptocurrencies!

If a coin is surging exponentially, please exercise caution and do not engage in buying the said coin.

For instance:

If a coin has been surging more than 50% in value, don’t buy it thinking it’s going to continue to go up.

Everything that goes up will fall, and you do not want to crash and burn.

Trust me when I say this:

There’s plenty of opportunities to make money, and you shouldn’t just jump on board when prices are surging.

Chances are, you’re already late to the party.

Exercise caution, plan ahead, and enter when the time is right.

Don’t chase returns:

It will come back to haunt you.

In this wildly volatile and hyped market, patience is key.

A major issue in the traditional affiliate marketing space is the absence of transparency.

Leveraging on blockchain allows parties to track all the data associated with each step of the process (e.g. where clicks come from, are they real people or bots, etc.)

This would automatically prevent fraud.

Additionally, the utilization of smart contracts will allow transactions to be executed instantaneously – contingent on several predefined conditions – without the interference of any third parties.

This ensures that both parties will be protected from fraud (e.g. risk of a party not paying the affiliate commission.)”

Jason Remillard, President of Data443

“The biggest blockchain trend will be the further expansion of coins and offerings related to them.

Some may be highly valuable and come from unexpected offerings!

As for mistakes to avoid, it’s probably the same with anything new.

You should avoid speculation without significant research, and remember the lessons of the past.

Invest in what you know.

If it sounds too complicated or too good to be true, it probably is!

The best tip I can share about this topic is that this will be one of the biggest years for a distributed blockchain, and it will be considered the epoch of many technological firsts.

Bitcoin fostered excitement, but in reality the concept of a blockchain is here to stay!

The biggest impact I expect is the repudiation of transactions.

Both fraud and the quality of data are rampant issues in affiliate marketing.

Anything that lessens the risk while increasing the reliability and validity of information will have a major impact.

For example, proof of delivery of content based on cookies stored (forever?) in a blockchain that many affiliate programs utilize may increase the acceptance by service providers which may have historically avoided affiliate marketing.”

Philipp Doğan, Head of Strategy at Midas Technologies AG

“With increasing attempts to regulate blockchain worldwide, providers will try to comply with legal cornerstones like KYC/AML in order to meet legal requirements and prevent conflicts with lawmakers.

Furthermore, in 2018, blockchain will be increasingly used to track assets and automate settlement processes.

In addition, we will see more and more Crypto ETFs on the market.

With the current crypto hype, everybody seems to perceive decentralization as a wonder weapon for or against everything.

Hence, the biggest mistake to avoid is to try to decentralize everything.

Distributed systems unfold their power and efficiency in areas of trust or custodianship.

Systems that are dependent on a trust-creating middleman or entity have the biggest potential to be disrupted by the technology as it replaces these positions and creates trust by design.

The best tip for you is to actually understand the technology.

Study big protocols like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Understand the benefits – but also the flaws and risks – before jumping on the hype train.

Projects like the basic attention token will try to cut out middlemen in the online advertising space.

This means the business model of affiliate marketing may risk becoming redundant.

The industry will need to reconcile its value proposition and find out how it can integrate the technology or adapt to its increasing usage.”

Kumar Sambhav Singh, CTO at Mantra Labs

“The biggest trend is that the Bitcoin bubble will build further.

Other cryptocurrencies will participate in this bubble.

ICOs will contribute to this bubble.

Serious blockchain enthusiasts will continue solving new use cases but fintech will still dominate when it comes to adopting Bitcoin.

As for common mistakes to avoid, you should never start mixing Bitcoin (cryptocurrency) and blockchain.

Blockchain is a concept/protocol whereas Bitcoin is one of the solutions/use cases built on blockchain.

Other mistakes?

Buying bitcoin.

Participating in ICOs.

Buying other cryptocurrencies.

The best tip I can share is to just ignore Bitcoin and think blockchain.

The biggest impact in affiliate marketing is that it can foster collaboration in marketers and the eventual collaboration of merchants.

Aggregators can also be impacted.”

Jeff Stollman, Technology Futurist

“The biggest blockchain trend?

People will begin to realize that Bitcoin’s rise in price has made it too costly for transactions other than investment purchases and will migrate transactions to another blockchain.

As for common mistakes, avoid getting caught up investing in cryptocurrencies without recognizing that many have limited long-term viability and will eventually crash.

The best tip I can share is that the cryptocurrency of the future will have a stable value that allows it to be used to support enterprise blockchain applications that will dwarf current consumer applications.

To make money on a stable-value currency will require investing in the company, not the currency.

As for the impact in the affiliate marketing industry, I think that smart contracts may enable automatic commission payments to affiliates, reducing the wait to get paid as well as the bureaucracy.

But this won’t become a widespread practice just yet.”

James Song, CEO at ExsulCoin

“The biggest trend in blockchain for 2018 is the fact that major companies are coming onboard and integrating the technology into their business.

Facebook will use blockchain to make their business more efficient.

So will Instagram and Snapchat.

Older, legacy businesses that we grew up with will try to use it too:

Sony, Apple, Macy’s, Jetblue.

The entire world’s attention is on blockchain right now.

Getting involved in some way will be a clear business decision for a lot of companies.

It’s not “the blockchain,” because there isn’t just one, there are many, so we just call it blockchain.

And understanding what blockchain can do, and what it can’t do, is incredibly important.

Blockchain can’t solve all the world’s problems.

It’s just a database that’s designed to be tamper-proof.

That’s all.

Knowing these things will get you very far in the blockchain community.

The best tip I can share is that affiliate marketers should take ten hours to learn everything they can about blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Watch Youtube videos.

That will let you know enough about it to create messaging that is super engaging.

As for the impact in affiliate marketing, the smart contracts on blockchain are great for tracking and paying affiliates.

It’ll make affiliate marketing easier and more popular, since no one has to trust you to pay them anymore – it’s just automatic.”

Sam Kim, CEO at KR8OS

“In its current incarnation, affiliate marketing is plagued with a variety of problematic issues.

Some of today’s most prominent pain-points are fraudulent activities carried out by hackers and the lack of transparency provided by the most prolific ad platforms.

These obstacles become quite clear when advertisers find out that bots represented up to 37% of the impressions for ads and resulted in $7.2 billion in ad fraud in 2016.

In 2018, blockchain technology will appear on the adtech scene, offering advertisers a more transparent and trustworthy way to track conversion attributions.

Platforms that are built upon blockchain technology will effectively create a decentralized, peer-to-peer platform that removes third-party intermediaries from the equation.

What this means is that advertisers can gain a clear and definitive picture surrounding the attribution process, since blockchain is constantly accessible to all.

This provides marketers with a fully decentralized record of clicks and conversions to calculate attribution.”

Anton Merkulov, Affiliate Relations and Crypto Advertising at PropellerAds

“2017 proved that blockchain technology is going to stay here for a long time. Last year’s crypto mania created an impressive market with a capitalization of over $500 billion. It has been immensely profitable for many players and – at the same time – incredibly turbulent and volatile.

2018 started with the collapse of Bitconnect, the largest crypto ponzi scheme so far. It wiped out $2.5 billion. There was also the hacking of a Coincheck that resulted in the loss of $530 million. Furthermore, Facebook banned all cryptocurrency and ICO ads on January 31st. These events reflect the serious challenges the crypto economy will face this year in terms of trust and security.

2017 was a year of ICOs. 2018 will be a year in which most will have to prove their worth. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s Co-Founder, estimates that 90% of all ICOs are doomed for various reasons. I think Vitalik’s opinion on crypto should definitely be taken seriously. I also believe the failure of early crypto startups and the exposure of scams will clear the way for more sophisticated and developed projects.

Reputable and trustworthy people are already looking into crypto. For example, Telegram is seeking to raise more than $2 billion during their ICO and Mark Zuckerberg believes that studying blockchain technology is a challenge for 2018. In spite of a ban on crypto ads on Facebook, its board of directors includes two important crypto investors: Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.

Understanding even the basics of blockchain technology requires remarkable effort. For anyone thinking about investing in cryptos in any form, I recommend remembering Warren Buffet’s advice not to invest in assets you do not understand. The crypto market is unpredictable and vulnerable to fraud and crime.

You must be fully aware of these facts!

Another piece of advice is to take reliable sources of information into consideration. For instance, Buterin had warned that Bitconnect was a ponzi scheme two months before it collapsed. Blockchain technology already affects affiliate marketing and the crypto rush has created a new marketing niche. Serious money is involved in the advertisement of crypto-related products using various traffic channels, i.e. niche media, PPC, social media, display traffic.

Crypto offers are turning into a new vertical where affiliates can make money using the same methodologies they already know so well. The main challenge of crypto advertising – besides the existence of credible products for promotions – will continue to be traffic. 2017 was a year of a lack of quality crypto traffic, with demand surpassing supply.

As a result, quality affiliate sites, blogs and channels have now become super relevant for the market. The recent ban of crypto advertising on Facebook will increase the shortage of quality traffic. A potential solution might be coming up with composite marketing strategies that involve the combination of various channels, e.g. affiliate traffic, Telegram chats, and display traffic, and a more personalized approach with effective retargeting tools.

In terms of structure, crypto affiliate marketing is likely to become more structured with more affiliate programs established for already existing crypto offers, e.g. ICO, exchanges, crypto trading, crypto gambling.”