Launching the Enterprise Blockchain Business: Why the Umbrella Network Acquired Lucidity

In 2017, the potential for smart contracts seemed limitless. We witnessed the ICOs of many promising blockchain projects seeking to revolutionize some of the oldest and most entrenched industries overnight.

These projects fell primarily into three major categories:

(1) crypto-native applications including financial applications, gaming, identity management, and more;

(2) applications and protocols that sought to bridge traditional finance with crypto and create new financial paradigms made possible only through blockchain and smart contracts, and;

(3) the enterprise adoption of blockchain and smart contracts to disintermediate non-value-adding participants, increase transparency, and automate business processes via a trustless system of smart contracts.

Since then, the blockchain community as a whole has managed to make considerable progress in two out of the three.

We’re still in the early stages, but the advances in Axie Infinity Play2Earn mechanics and financial applications like Yearn, among others, are undeniably successful crypto-native applications.

Furthermore, we’ve seen traditional financial players like Square, Robinhood, PayPal, Venmo, and others bridge the divide between centralized and decentralized finance. However, meaningful Enterprise adoption has not yet come to pass.

Early news of IBM Blockchain working with Maersk and other leaders in industry verticals failed to generate material results. The promise of supply chains running on cryptocurrencies, intellectual property management, consumer credit, and other implementations of the technology have yet to materialize.

However, we believe that is all about to change.

Enterprise adoption of cryptocurrencies is the next frontier, and it is around the corner.

The Umbrella Network’s efficient data platform is ideally suited for the enterprise space. For larger corporations, reliability, scalability, and security at low cost are not just nice-to-haves, but are absolutely necessary for them to run profitable operations.

Given the Umbrella Network’s cost advantage over other oracles in bringing large volumes of data on-chain, the Umbrella Network is unparalleled in its ability to onboard enterprise big data on-chain with these industrial-strength requirements of reliability, scalability, and security, but at a fraction of the cost.

To spearhead the Umbrella Network’s entrance into the enterprise market, we looked far and wide for the ideal opportunity. In the end, we realized that the answer was right in front of us. Lucidity is a digital advertising oracle with a proven track record.

Their clients like corporate heavyweights Samsung, KFC, and Hyundai account for billions of dollars of annual advertising spend. For the past four years, Lucidity has built the leading solution to take centralized data along the advertising supply chain and migrate the data on-chain.

Once on-chain, Lucidity’s clients can run custom analytics and automate processes with the same reliability and security that powers DeFi and cryptocurrency.

Their solution has proven to reduce fraud by over 30% and dramatically increase operational efficiency. In a market approaching $400 billion per year, the potential savings and benefits are absolutely mind-blowing — assuming these brands care about tens of billions of dollars that would be saved. Lucidity has a straightforward goal of confirming that advertisers get what they pay for.

The Future

In a number of ways, Lucidity is just a first step.

First, the Umbrella Network acquired Lucidity not just for what it is today, but for what it can become. Lucidity will grow to become a comprehensive digital advertising platform to rival centralized leaders like Google and The Trade Desk.

Much like Google used the acquisition of DoubleClick as the foundation of its AdTech solution, the Umbrella Network will use Lucidity’s digital advertising oracle for the foundation of our own decentralized digital advertising platform.

We will establish a modernized Ad Network and build both buy-side and sell-side platforms with cutting-edge targeting solutions. Lucidity will automate ad verification and payments, so publishers no longer have to wait for the very money they rely on to pay their bills.

Furthermore, Lucidity will help to level the playing field for small advertisers to receive the same access and technological advantages as their larger brethren.

Second, Lucidity is only the Umbrella Network’s first foray into the enterprise market. We’ve identified a number of industries where the Umbrella Network’s scalable, low-cost oracle can deliver immense value.

Whether it’s via acquisition, partnership, or internal development, look for us to be strategic, adaptive, and methodical in pursuing these opportunities.

Finally, while we want to realize the great opportunities ahead of us, we must initially focus on the integration and redeployment of Lucidity.

For Lucidity’s current clients, nothing will change, and they will continue to receive the same award-winning technology as well as the best-in-class service and support that they have come to expect.

If anything, this acquisition will allow Lucidity to invest even more into additional features and product enhancements.

As the Umbrella Network incorporates Lucidity into our platform, UMB community members will gain exposure to the benefits of Lucidity’s work with leading brands. Lucidity will pay a fee to Umbrella Network in proportion to its net revenues.

These fees will be paid out to validators and their stakers on a pro rata basis as originally designed. And there will be other mutual benefits.

In short, no one else was as perfect a fit for Lucidity as the Umbrella Network. No other oracle on the market would be able to handle the volume and frequency of data that Lucidity processes. And now with the integration of Lucidity, the Umbrella Network will process a higher volume of data than any other blockchain oracle.

Recognizing that efficient and voluminous data processing is an absolute requirement of enterprise-level big data, the Umbrella Network is now positioned as the go-to oracle for real-world industry applications.

This letter is not meant to be a comprehensive update on the acquisition. We are sure our community has many questions about the exciting update. In the coming days and weeks, we will provide additional details. And as always, we will give the community opportunities to ask questions and provide feedback.

This is a monumental moment for the Umbrella Network, its community, and the enterprise blockchain market. We are truly excited for what the future brings, and look forward to sharing this journey with our community.