Interview with Matvey Diadkov, Bitmedia's CEO

The past 10 years have shown to be extremely eventful for the global economy. As soon as the world recovered from the 2008 housing crisis, we were all introduced to the notion of Bitcoin, which in turn attracted public attention to the existence of cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech. Some see blockchain as the breath of fresh air set to upgrade the old-fashioned financial system. Others still consider it as a wave that won’t last forever. Regardless of opinions, it is fair to say that blockchain and cryptocurrency technology is set to only expand further into the global economy and therefore must be taken seriously.

In light of the aforementioned, we decided to talk to Matvey Diadkov, the CEO of Bitmedia.io - the display ad network for blockchain projects that helped to develop this medium and take a clear lead in it. We will discuss the expansion of blockchain, its mark on the world and how did Bitmedia manage to become the Google Ads of the crypto world in such a short, by conventional industry standards, period of time.

Interviewing blockchain’s champions

As you may know, blockchain is not strictly limited to cryptocurrency. In fact, it is an industry that has gotten so big that it now requires a multitude of other industries to service the growth and traction of its expansion towards supernova. Marketing is one such industry and it plays an incremental role in blockchain technology’s mission towards becoming a globally recognized household name.

Delving further, marketing can perhaps be considered the only industry that went through the same ups and downs as the space it serves. Whenever regulations hit cryptocurrency, the marketing world has always followed suit. Do you catch yourself thinking why? Marketing draws the audiences and is therefore akin to a master key that manages the development of any industry subjected to it. And this is why our conversation with Matvey is set to be an incredibly interesting affair. How do you break through limitations? What shall we expect from blockchain? How to build a successful company in the crypto space and write the history of blockchain? Let’s find out!

What did it all start with?

We launched in 2014 and have quickly become one of the niche forefronts in blockchain advertising. In fact, Bitmedia was a pioneer in crypto marketing and it is what helped to cement our status in banner distribution for crypto projects. The platform took off when Bitcoin was worth $100 and people refused to take it seriously. It was three of us at the start, with no external funding, but we were all captivated by an idea that blockchain will, at some point, become a beast of an infrastructure, in need of professional ad tools.

“Bitcoin was worth $100 and people refused to take it seriously. We were the first who started crypto advertising and remain leaders in this niche”.

Shortly after, blockchain and Bitcoin turned incremental to the global economy. Along the way, we managed to secure a seed funding round, that allowed us to scale up, both in terms of the ad reach, and the tools our ad platform could offer. I am confident that it is not the limit for us and we will continue to perfect and grow both Bitmedia and other projects we are part of. Today, it is a holding company that covers banner ads space, gameFi, NFTs and practically everything else that is blockchain resultant.

What differentiates Bitmedia from other ad networks in the space?

We were always about delivering the most effective ad solutions to our clients. Display ads medium is notoriously known for fake reporting and bloated conversions created by bots. Bitmedia’s path was never meant to be in line with this and it is why we employ dedicated algorithms that verify all traffic that ad campaigns generate. This is just one of the reasons why clients always return to us, as they see how effective their budget can be.

Furthermore, we decided not to replicate the standard targeting tools usually found on conventional platforms, but take it a step further instead. Our platform lets you create highly targeted ad campaigns that can be tailored to geo, specific publications, how many times the ad gets shown to a specific user, devices and more. The common industry practice is to offer CPM campaign type only. It is when an advertiser pays for each 1000 impressions an ad generates. Whilst this is great for brand awareness, cost effective conversions come from pay per click campaigns, and Bitmedia is the only network that does it. Right now we cover over 7000 publications and serve over 1.5 billion ads per month. It is a win win, both for publishers that earn by giving us access to their users and advertisers that have a chance to go global.

How do regulations affect blockchain and Bitmedia?

Regulations played a twofold role in the life of Bitmedia and the crypto space. When Google Ads and other conventional ad platforms banned cryptocurrency projects we experienced a substantial increase in demand. Nevertheless, the demand was there even without the bans. See, we are not trying to compete with standard ad platforms, and simply give our advertisers access to an audiences niche that is all about finance, crypto and blockchain. We are quite specific in the public we reach, and this is not a disadvantage but a benefit, that plays into the effectiveness of ad budgets.

At the same time, it will be foolish to state that the blockchain industry was not affected by strict ad policies. Good marketing is omnichannel and it becomes an unreachable dream when regulators tighten the screws of the options advertisers have. Did it destroy the industry’s chances to become household? Not at all. Perhaps in some ways, it serves as proof that cryptocurrency is here to stay, since no bans have historically detrimentally affected its growth.

What is Bitmedia today?

We create robust and high-load online advertising systems. As we started building and researching various use cases of blockchain technology, we realized that it all boils down to the community. Blockchain technology as we know it today is democratized, and building great products is not difficult, but getting users is the most difficult challenge that all blockchain projects are faced with. This is where Bitmedia steps in, helping crypto projects to acquire the much deserved active users and communities.

Bitmedia is not the end of the track for us. We have launched and continue to develop other landmark projects like the NFT specific 8biticon. It was the first pixel avatar maker that took off back in 2012, and according to some, it is 8biticon that fueled the NFT trend with outflowing Cryptopunks and other usual suspects.

How do you see the future of the crypto market?

The cryptocurrency market is developing at an ever-increasing pace. Still, we are only at its early seed stage, where the foundations are laid and norms established.

On a global scale, financial institutions and private companies learn how to use DeFi tools to maximise earnings and improve internal logistics and operations. Individuals also jump on board, creating the next big thing using blockchain tech.

Web3 is one such example and it is no longer the future. Being the offspring of blockchain, it is already a heavyweight that, by day, increases its coverage in terms of the industries served. Gaming can be considered to be the most vibrant part of Web3 in how it takes over the market. This is where Bitmedia also plays an integral role, as we not only help existing projects to gain the right audiences and publicity, but also invest in the development of promising NFT metaverse gaming projects like Chainers.

The project is a breakthrough in the NFT and GameFi space as it combines the two completely different mediums and introduces an in-game economy that uses blockchain to its full potential. You can think of it as a metaverse powered by rocketfuel, which is staking and annual yields, NFTs and gaming that draws you like a magnet and doesn't let go.

I wouldn’t call blockchain, crypto and DeFi a substitute to traditional finance. Opposingly, it is set to become a medium of its own. One that intersects with the conventional markets but creates greater opportunities. Hence, we shouldn’t approach blockchain with traditional thinking because it is set to grow into something no one has ever seen before, and perhaps, something we can’t fully grasp just yet.

Last but not least, I would like to end with a quote by Viktor Gyugo, that fully encompasses blockchain and its future: Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Final words

Textbook knowledge dictates that an industry’s future is governed by its depth. The more industries serve the blockchain, the greater its chances are to break through limitations. Marketing in blockchain acts as a primary proof of it and industry leaders like Matvey Diadkov seem to be the engines that turn the norms up a notch. All because we are not even close to the final iterations of the evolution, right?

Follow Matvey Diadkov on Twitter and LinkedIN

Follow Bitmedia on Twitter , Facebook, LinkedIN