Engineering the Thirdwave of Advertising

The Thirdwave of Advertising is the vision for a new era, where digital and decentralized worlds converge, targeting creates alignment, and users become owners. Wallet-Aware Advertising bridges vision and execution, providing a privacy-first foundation for targeted, value-driven engagement.

Engineering the Thirdwave of Advertising unfolds through five levels, each addressing critical challenges, unlocking new opportunities, and demonstrating how Thirdwave is actively building the tools and infrastructure to enable this transformation:

This phased approach offers a path toward a more precise, transparent, and value-aligned ecosystem. Wallet-Aware Advertising transforms how advertisers, developers, and platforms collaborate—ushering in an era where shared growth and user ownership define the future of digital engagement.

Level 1: Building A Wallet Aware Ecosystem

Blockchain generates an immense volume of data through wallet activity, representing user behaviors, contributions, and value across ecosystems. However, this data is fragmented, and spread across wallets, platforms, and chains, making it nearly impossible to see the full picture. Without the tools to access and unify this data, projects are left relying on incomplete or surface-level metrics, limiting their ability to make informed decisions.

To fully leverage wallet identifiers and unlock the potential of blockchain data, the industry needs tools that can streamline, consolidate, interpret, and elevate key user behaviors across fragmented ecosystems. This includes:

• Mapping Wallet Activity Across Chains: Mapping billions of transactions and wallets across chains to uncover patterns and cross-platform behaviors.
• Creating Holistic User Profiles: Aggregating wallet activity into privacy-safe, comprehensive profiles that connect behaviors across ecosystems.
• Surfacing Meaningful Signals: Tools that analyze wallet activity to surface meaningful signals like engagement, loyalty, and quality, distinguishing high-value users from noise.

Thirdwave is addressing these challenges with Wallet Intelligence, a foundation for unifying and interpreting wallet activity. By connecting fragmented blockchain data across chains and platforms, Wallet Intelligence creates actionable insights that projects can trust.

Level 2: Making Data-Driven Decisions

Despite the potential of wallet data, developers face significant barriers to accessing and using it effectively. Without simplified tools, integrating wallet insights into applications remains complex, slowing innovation and adoption. Developer adoption is key to making Wallet-Aware Advertising a reality.

To unlock the potential of wallet data, we need to equip developers with tools that simplify access to and integration of actionable insights. This includes:

• Intuitive Data Access: Providing APIs and SDKs allowing developers to integrate wallet insights into their applications seamlessly.
• Fostering Ecosystem Innovation: Supporting developers through hackathons, grants, and resources that encourage experimentation and innovation with wallet-based data.
• Lowering Barriers to Entry: Offering clear documentation, community support, and streamlined tools to ensure developers can easily build with onchain signals.

Thirdwave is enabling this transformation by providing the infrastructure and developer tools necessary to integrate onchain signals into applications. With the Wallet Intelligence API delivering single wallet requests in under 100 milliseconds, developers can rely on real-time insights to build faster, smarter, and more personalized applications.

Level 3: Transforming Users to Owners

Web3 projects often rely on short-term tactics like airdrops and quests, but these strategies are often "Wallet Blind"—missing the onchain signals required for effective user targeting & measuring effectiveness. While these tools can be powerful, their impact is limited when they attract fleeting attention rather than building long-term value.

By introducing wallet-aware growth tools, we create the opportunity for a fundamental shift: from attracting short-term users to cultivating long-term owners. Owners are more than just participants; they are users deeply invested in your project's success, both financially and emotionally, because they see themselves as integral to its growth.

For Web3 growth tools to evolve, they must fully integrate wallet-based insights to enable targeted and impactful campaigns. This involves:

• Behavioral Segmentation Through Onchain Activity: Focusing on actionable wallet behaviors, like high-value transactions or active participation in DeFi ecosystems, to reach users who contribute to long-term growth.
• Dynamic Campaigns Powered by Real-Time Wallet Data: Using live signals like recent transactions or token activity to adapt incentives dynamically and maintain user engagement.
• Transparent Attribution via Wallet-Based Metrics: Linking campaign success to meaningful outcomes, such as staking, token swaps, or NFT interactions, by leveraging wallet-based cost-per-action (CPA) models.

Level 4: Bridging Onchain Data to Offchain Advertising Channels

Traditional ad systems deliver massive scale but lack the precision and transparency needed for modern advertising, especially as cookies and device IDs decline. Wallet data offers a privacy-safe, deterministic alternative, but its potential remains unrealized without integration into existing tools like DSPs and attribution platforms.

• Incorporate Wallet-Based Targeting into Programmatic Advertising: Define audience segments using verified onchain actions, such as staking activity or high-value NFT purchases. These insights feed into DSPs and SSPs to enable real-time bidding strategies that prioritize high-value users.
• Enhance Attribution Systems with Wallet Metrics: Attribution systems already excel at connecting campaigns to outcomes, but Web3 data fills in critical gaps by incorporating wallet signals, such as staking volume, token transactions, and user progression.
• Close Privacy-Driven Data Gaps: Replace legacy identifiers with wallet identifiers that are privacy-compliant and scalable, meeting the demands of modern regulations.

Integrating wallet data into global advertising unlocks precision targeting for both Web2 and Web3 advertisers. In Web3, advertisers could target wallets with patterns of high transaction volumes in DeFi protocols, frequent NFT marketplace activity, or consistent participation in token staking. For Web2, luxury and premium brands can identify high-value buyers based on verifiable spending behaviors.

Level 5: Decentralizing Dynamic Discovery

Web3 campaigns operate in silos, with little interoperability between platforms. Incentives are misaligned, leaving users under-rewarded for their contributions and projects struggling to build ecosystem-wide loyalty. Without shared standards or infrastructure, collaboration remains limited, stifling cross-platform growth.

Solving these challenges requires blockchain primitives—tools that establish trust, align incentives, and drive collaboration—enabling value-driven decentralized ads. We envision a decentralized system that orchestrates value flows between participants while maintaining alignment of incentives. Each component plays a critical role:

• Empowering User Ownership: Giving users control over their data and rewarding their meaningful contributions, transforming them into active stakeholders across platforms.
• Blockchain-Backed Incentives: Establishing transparent, verifiable systems for rewarding user actions, ensuring that incentives align with the value created by each participant.
• Interoperability Across Platforms: Creating shared standards for targeting, measurement, and attribution, ensuring seamless engagement across chains.

Thirdwave is contributing to this vision through the Wave Network, a decentralized platform that integrates blockchain primitives. By enabling user ownership, interoperability, and transparent incentives, the Wave Network empowers projects to target and reward users in ways that drive sustainable growth and lasting engagement.

The Future of Advertising is Wallet-Aware

Wallet-Aware Advertising isn't just the next chapter in digital growth, it's a reimagining of how value is created and shared. By turning users into owners, aligning incentives, and delivering transparency, this approach creates ecosystems where everyone wins.

At Thirdwave, we're building the infrastructure to make this vision a reality by meeting advertisers where they are today. By integrating blockchain data into existing Web2 technologies, we reduce barriers to adoption and demonstrate the power of onchain data within familiar frameworks.

2025 is going to be a defining year for our industry and for Thirdwave, as we introduce the world to Wallet-Aware Advertising. This is your invitation. Whether you're a developer, a protocol, or a brand, join us in building the Thirdwave of Advertising—a future where growth is collaborative, user-centric, and truly transformative.

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