Chris James Murphy and Philip Jonitz are two entrepreneurs on a mission to reimagine how users interact with digital advertising completely. Their globally active startup, Klink Finance, has built an earnings platform where you can earn cash or crypto by completing online offers, playing games, joining social quests, and even participating in airdrops. From answering surveys and trying new apps to exploring online rewards, Klink makes it easy to earn money every day, right from your phone or laptop.
Given that Web2 advertising is facing mounting challenges from ad fatigue, privacy concerns, and skyrocketing user acquisition costs, Klink Finance has positioned itself as the bridge between the Web2 ad model and the emerging Web3 reward economy. The platform now serves over 850,000 users across 140 countries, with partnerships including Arbitrum Foundation, Bybit, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Binance and Ledger, among many others. Klink also recently announced the upcoming launch of its $KLINK token in October 2025, a major milestone in powering its reward-driven ecosystem.
Mr. Jonitz and Murphy, thank you for taking the time to answer some questions and share your knowledge with us. We're hoping to understand how you're building the future of user rewards and what this means for the broader advertising industry.
To get started, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you realized traditional advertising was fundamentally broken?
Philip Jonitz: "Over the past decade working across startups, crypto, and venture capital, I’ve seen firsthand how companies of all sizes struggle with advertising and user acquisition. For startups in particular, limited budgets and uncertain outcomes make it risky to invest in ads. Traditional Web2 advertising turns users into resources to be sold to advertisers instead of participants who should be rewarded. When Apple gave people the option to opt out of tracking in 2021, it wiped out billions in ad revenue overnight and showed how broken and extractive the Web2 model had become."
Chris James Murphy:"As I finished university, I started my career at Twitter before moving on to help several scale-up tech companies expand into new markets across different verticals. I also built and successfully exited an e-commerce company in the US. Through these experiences, I saw firsthand how broken the traditional digital advertising model really is. Online businesses pour massive budgets into Google, Meta, X, and other programmatic ad networks for user acquisition, sometimes spending hundreds of dollars just to secure a single app download, only to face terrible retention rates.”
You've been building Klink since the crypto bear market started. How do you see the transition from Web2 to Web3 advertising happening, especially during market downturns?
PJ: "Launching right as the bear market hit in 2022 was tough, but it forced us to focus on real utility rather than hype. We discovered that economic downturns actually accelerate the adoption of earning platforms. When people need additional income streams, direct rewards become incredibly appealing. Our top users consistently earn over $100 monthly through passive engagement, with high performers reaching $1,000+ monthly as a side hustle."
There's so much buzz around Web3, but you're actually solving practical problems. How does Klink's reward system differ from traditional advertising models?
CJM: "Instead of the Web2 model where advertisers profit from user data and engagement while users get nothing, we create a direct value exchange. Users earn crypto ar cash payouts for completing online tasks, engaging with new apps, and contributing to their ecosystems. Brands get highly engaged, qualified users who choose to interact with them. We see 60-70% better engagement rates compared to traditional ads because users are incentivized to actually try products rather than scroll past them."
You mentioned impressive user numbers. Can you break down what this looks like in practice?
PJ: "We operate a dual ecosystem: our 850,000+ platform users across 140 countries earn through curated partner offers, everything from trying new online services to testing gaming platforms. On the other hand, we provide companies with our Offer Integration API, letting them embed earning opportunities directly into their platforms on a revenue sharing business model. To date, we expanded our global reach to 5M users across this growing publisher ad network, actively driving up revenue and new user acquisition for our partners.
How do established companies view this transition? Are they resistant to paying users directly?
CJM: Not at all, the transition to affiliate marketing is becoming a common consensus among advertisers. Companies like Bybit, Crypto.com, Binance and Coinbase have existing programs in place where they incentivise third parties to drive users to them, but with our model we flip it on its head by giving the user a direct share of the advertising revenue in return on their efforts for engaging with new services. We have already seen cases where user acquisition costs drop massively for our advertisers, along with engagement quality increasing dramatically. Even traditional companies are realizing that paying users directly for attention and data is more efficient than paying intermediaries who may or may not deliver engaged users."
The $KLINK token is launching soon. How does tokenization change the advertising game entirely?
PJ: "The $KLINK token creates a sustainable economy around our earning infrastructure. It powers the value exchange between advertisers and users, ensuring that campaign budgets flow into the token economy. For users, this means enhanced payouts, early access to new features, and exclusive perks. For partners, it creates a transparent and scalable way to acquire users. This forms a self-reinforcing growth flywheel that Web2 models simply can’t replicate."
What role does AI play in making this model actually work at scale?
CJM: "Although we don’t brand ourselves directly as an AI company, it is a part of our day to day operations and also baked into our product to enhance it such as matching users with relevant opportunities and optimizing partner ad campaign budget performance. Our recommendation engine analyzes user behavior, preferences, and earnings history to suggest the most valuable opportunities for each individual. For partners, AI features that we are rolling out will help optimize campaign targeting, predicting which user segments will have the highest engagement and completion rates."
What have been your biggest challenges building in the Web3 space, and how have you overcome them?
PJ: "User education remains a huge challenge. Many people still see crypto as speculative rather than practical. We've invested heavily in UX to make earning online, whether that be in fiat or crypto as simple as using any traditional app, users don't need to understand blockchain to benefit from it. Via our partners, we support withdrawals in various global currencies, including traditional fiat like USD, EUR, and GBP, alongside multiple crypto options. It’s down to the user on how they want to receive their returns."
Looking ahead, where do you see this space in five years? Will traditional advertising still exist?
CJM: "I believe direct user rewards from engagement with online advertising will become the standard, not the exception. Every consumer facing platform will need to adopt similar affiliate models or risk losing users to different alternatives that offer actual value sharing. We estimate 500+ million people will enter crypto over the next few years, and we want Klink to be their entry point."
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to build in this transition period?
PJ: "Focus on solving real problems, not just leveraging new technology and following new narratives or new trends. Web3 tools are powerful, but they're only valuable if they create genuine utility for users. Don't build Web3 solutions looking for problems; identify pain points in existing systems and use Web3 to solve them better. Also, think about commercial sustainability from day one. Too many Web3 projects launched in this cycle with unsustainable thought processes on how to generate real revenue, even in market downturns."
What's next for Klink? Where should we expect to see you expanding?
CJM: "We're expanding into serving more localized offers to global regions, our platform will support 15+ languages, and our commercial Offer API will move out of Beta into self-serve mainnet, whereby any product can easily embed offers into their own services to assist further monetization on their own existing user base. Our vision is to become the primary advertising infrastructure layer powering online earnings based advertising across the entire internet. The companies that recognize this shift early and start building bridges between Web2 and Web3 will capture the most value during this transition."
Any final thoughts on why the disruption of Web2 advertising is inevitable?
PJ: "Users are demanding more value, privacy and autonomy in their online actions, and our business model offers fundamentally better alternatives. The companies that wait will find themselves competing for attention in an increasingly expensive and ineffective traditional ad ecosystem. The future belongs to platforms that reward their users, not exploit them. That's not just good ethics. It's better business."
Philip Jonitz is Co-Founder of Klink Finance, bringing 10 years of startup, crypto and venture capital experience. Chris James Murphy is Co-Founder, with extensive experience scaling tech companies and successful e-commerce exits in the US market. Together, they’re reshaping user acquisition through Web3 rewards at Klink Finance, as Klink gears up for the highly anticipated $KLINK token launch in October 2025.