Alkimi brings billions in ad spend on-chain to fix broken ad ecosystem
Intending to fix a broken ad ecosystem, Alkimi's platform removes opaque intermediaries from the advertising supply chain, redirecting value directly between advertisers and publishers.
The ad platform – which is already seeing mainstream adoption of ad spend on blockchain through brands such as Amazon's AWS, TikTok, Polestar and Currys – exposes where spend was previously lost, bringing transparency, reduced fees and accelerated payments to the digital advertising landscape.
The partnership sees Alkimi adopt the full stack of Mysten-created technologies – including the Sui blockchain, Walrus, Nautilus, and Seal – to bring digital advertising on-chain, advancing one of the largest and most commercially viable sectors and showcasing how these innovations work together to modernise a legacy industry.
Powered by Sui's high-performance blockchain, Alkimi infrastructure will also be able to unlock future opportunities for data monetisation, from licensing models to AdFi innovations.
'Alkimi is fixing a broken digital and advertising ecosystem by bringing it on-chain, and we are proud to be the network chosen for such an important job,' said Christian Thompson, Managing Director at Sui Foundation.
'Sui and its stack ensure the experience for Alkimi and their partners is fast, secure, transparent, and able to function completely on-chain – the only way the benefits of decentralization can be fully realised,' Thompson added.
Each Mysten-created product plays a critical role in bringing this modernised advertising experience to life:
The Sui blockchain is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers.
is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers. Walrus supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale.
supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale. Nautilus allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met.
allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met. Seal encrypts and manages access to the sensitive ad impression data and related metadata of Alkimi's Fortune 500 clients without relying on centralised services, making a fully on-chain advertising platform possible — protecting brand and publisher confidentiality while keeping the system fully decentralized.
'We had the tech, and we knew it needed to scale, that's when the team at Sui really leaned in,' said Ben Putley, CEO and Co-Founder of Alkimi.
'They understood our vision to rebuild digital advertising into something more transparent and equitable. Bringing it onchain isn't about replicating the legacy systems, it's about giving advertisers, publishers and users a fundamentally better experience, powered by faster, more secure, and decentralised infrastructure,' Putley concluded.
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Alkimi brings billions in ad spend on-chain to fix broken ad ecosystem
Decentralised ad platform Alkimi has partnered with Sui, a blockchain built for mass adoption, to bring billions of dollars in digital advertising revenue on-chain. Intending to fix a broken ad ecosystem, Alkimi's platform removes opaque intermediaries from the advertising supply chain, redirecting value directly between advertisers and publishers. The ad platform – which is already seeing mainstream adoption of ad spend on blockchain through brands such as Amazon's AWS, TikTok, Polestar and Currys – exposes where spend was previously lost, bringing transparency, reduced fees and accelerated payments to the digital advertising landscape. The partnership sees Alkimi adopt the full stack of Mysten-created technologies – including the Sui blockchain, Walrus, Nautilus, and Seal – to bring digital advertising on-chain, advancing one of the largest and most commercially viable sectors and showcasing how these innovations work together to modernise a legacy industry. Powered by Sui's high-performance blockchain, Alkimi infrastructure will also be able to unlock future opportunities for data monetisation, from licensing models to AdFi innovations. 'Alkimi is fixing a broken digital and advertising ecosystem by bringing it on-chain, and we are proud to be the network chosen for such an important job,' said Christian Thompson, Managing Director at Sui Foundation. 'Sui and its stack ensure the experience for Alkimi and their partners is fast, secure, transparent, and able to function completely on-chain – the only way the benefits of decentralization can be fully realised,' Thompson added. Each Mysten-created product plays a critical role in bringing this modernised advertising experience to life: The Sui blockchain is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers. is the coordination layer for Alkimi's offering, powering verifiable, outcome-based transactions between advertisers and publishers. Walrus supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale. supercharges Alkimi's capabilities, enabling the platform to scale efficiently by putting data onchain. Currently delivering more than 25 million ad impressions per day, Alkimi is expanding its network of publishers and global brands. Walrus ensures the data infrastructure keeps pace, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance solution. With real-world advertisers requiring transparency and auditability, Walrus gives Alkimi the foundation to deliver trusted, accurate data at scale. Nautilus allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met. allows Alkimi to independently validate ad impressions and run financial reconciliation logic in verifiable trusted execution environments (TEEs) — ensuring advertisers and publishers are paid based on provably accurate delivery data and help ensure agreements between advertisers and publishers are met. Seal encrypts and manages access to the sensitive ad impression data and related metadata of Alkimi's Fortune 500 clients without relying on centralised services, making a fully on-chain advertising platform possible — protecting brand and publisher confidentiality while keeping the system fully decentralized. 'We had the tech, and we knew it needed to scale, that's when the team at Sui really leaned in,' said Ben Putley, CEO and Co-Founder of Alkimi. 'They understood our vision to rebuild digital advertising into something more transparent and equitable. Bringing it onchain isn't about replicating the legacy systems, it's about giving advertisers, publishers and users a fundamentally better experience, powered by faster, more secure, and decentralised infrastructure,' Putley concluded.
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The timing could significantly reshape traffic flows during the industry's most critical quarter, compelling competitors to adapt their campaigns earlier and more aggressively. This move also follows key shifts in Google's advertising ecosystem. In late 2024, Google removed Performance Max's priority over Standard Shopping campaigns, diminishing the dominance of automated ad placements. Simultaneously, Google Lens began serving shopping ads within its 20 billion monthly visual searches, and Perplexity AI entered the market with a one-click, AI-powered shopping assistant. In this context, Amazon's move is widely viewed as a deliberate shift away from paying for visibility on Google, and toward controlling the entire product discovery journey themselves. As Sajjad puts it, 'Amazon didn't tweak a line item — they redrew the map.' Industry leaders weigh in The advertising and e-commerce world responded with a wave of analysis and speculation. Executives and digital leaders interpreted the withdrawal as a calculated signal of Amazon's evolving position in the digital advertising ecosystem. Faheem Ahmad, Head of Growth at Chalhoub Group, framed the move as a data-driven optimisation play with broader implications for ad strategy, saying, 'They presumably spent $50m per year on shopping ads, given a 600 million inventory size. That's $230 per product per day, which is huge. Amazon may only continue advertising its private-label inventory, which represents just 2 per cent of its SKUs.' Asim Shaikh, eCommerce and Digital Leader at iHerb, framed the withdrawal as a structural shift rather than a tactical change. 'I believe this isn't about bid strategy, it's a pure platform power shift. Amazon recently blocked Google's 'Project Mariner' crawler. If Google's AI models train on your content, and you're paying them for traffic? That's a bad deal not only for Amazon but for most established retailers,' Shaikh said. Shaikh added that Amazon likely wants to be 'the first step in search, not the last click'. Strategic tension with Google Faisal Dean, CEO of Assembly's MENA region, contextualised Amazon's withdrawal as part of a broader trend in their relationship with Google. 'This is not the first time Amazon has pulled back spend. However, this seems to be the most drastic to date,' he noted. Dean also pointed to the growing contradiction in Amazon's continued funding of a competitor that is building directly competitive capabilities. 'The strategic contradiction of funding your competitor has become more apparent as Google's AI-powered contextual answers and zero-click queries could put Amazon at risk of over-reliance,' he said. Dean added that while the decision likely includes considerations around MMM (marketing mix modeling), LTV-driven incrementality testing, and seasonality-driven investments, there may also be a forward-looking element at play. He said, 'This could potentially be a future-facing strategy to stop part-funding, both with advertising dollars and data, Google's feature rollouts announced earlier this year, which aim to improve the personalised shopping experience and close the loop within Google itself i.e., stepping onto Amazon's turf, as well as free up millions in advertising spend to re-invest into their own growing retail media offering'. A data-driven power move According to current third-party estimates, Amazon Prime has approximately 220 to 260 million paying members globally, with around 180 million in the United States alone. This accounts for nearly 75–80 per cent of all US households. For many Prime subscribers, the purchase journey starts and ends on Amazon, making Google and other search platforms increasingly irrelevant. As Rasha Hamzeh, Managing Director at the Inhouse Agency, put it, 'Owning discovery, ditching dependency, not a test but a territory grab. Or maybe Amazon's betting that customers no longer need to be acquired. Not fighting for clicks but optimising for loyalty.' Darine Sabbagh, GM of E-commerce at Chalhoub Group, added, 'At their scale, there's enough critical mass in the zMOT journey to just 'Amazon it,' rather than 'Google it' first. Staying on Google may have simply been a way to crowd others out.' Chris Bishop, Ecommerce Director at SQUATWOLF, framed the withdrawal as a defining industry moment, saying, 'The king is dead, long live the king. Amazon stepping back from Google Shopping isn't just a gap in the auction – it may be a once-in-a-cycle shift in category dynamics.' Bishop adds, 'While Amazon tests how far it can pull back from funding Google's coffers without losing its grip on the customer, especially in territories where it has long commanded a disproportionate share of wallet, this could be an Ehrenberg-Bass moment: double down on penetration, win light buyers, and build mental availability while the giant is, perhaps arrogantly, asleep at the wheel.' What's next? With CPCs down 20–40 per cent, competitors are already capturing market share in Amazon's absence. Whether Amazon's self-sufficiency gamble pays off, or simply creates space for rivals to reclaim paid search real estate, remains to be seen. Bilal Adham, Group Vice President of Digital at DP World, sees this as a familiar pattern. Adham said, 'We've seen similar tactics from Shein, Temu, and Alibaba — flooding Google listing ads early on, then pulling back once they'd built a pool of users.' But in Amazon's case, the implications may run deeper. He added, 'If you take a step back, are Amazon telling us they've reached the holy grail of ecommerce? Scale acquisition, then shift to trust, experience, and habit. With app installs, repeat sessions, logged-in users, and CRM, it reduces the need for paid discovery altogether, playing on loyalty and advocacy.' Adham ended with a sharp reflection, saying, 'Back in 2014, Eric Schmidt called Amazon 'Google's biggest search competitor.' For Amazon, that moment may have quietly arrived.' For now, one thing is clear: Amazon has signaled it no longer intends to play by Google's rules. Whether others follow may define the next era of digital commerce. Authored by Nasser Oudjidane, Co-founder and CEO at
