Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a utility token made to be used with the Brave browser. The token uses the blockchain of Ethereum. The token was developed alongside the Brave browser which blocks unwanted ads and trackers.
You probably use a web browser such as Google Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. The Brave browser is another one of these products.
When browsing various media on the Internet, you will see various advertisements. These can cause concerns for your device’s battery life or mobile data usage. There are also privacy concerns with trackers. The Brave browser blocks these ads by default.
When seeing an ad on the Brave browser (Brave Ads), you can receive BAT as a browsing reward. Compensating users for viewing ads is the basic concept for both BAT and the Brave browser.
What is the Brave browser?
This project aims to create a privacy-focused browser that provides a better user experience than commonly used browsers.
The Brave browser blocks ads by default and displays Brave Ads instead. The user is given a choice of whether or not to view the ad. Those who choose to watch the ad receive a portion of the ad fee. Users can pay tips in BAT to content creators in the Brave browser and can make small charges every month.
Brave Ads is an opt-in, privacy-protection ad platform that was fully implemented to the Brave browser in April 2019. Brave Ads is taking many proposals and recommendations to find a balance between privacy protection laws and regulations such as the EU GDPR (the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation) and offering ads that are highly relevant to user actions.
The Brave browser launched in 2015 and held an ICO in 2017. After about 2 years of development, the ability to receive tokens in the Brave browser was partially implemented in April 2019.
The relationship between the advertisers, users, and content publishers is summarized below.
Advertisers: Pays BAT to Brave browser users as a reward for viewing their ads.
Users: Can receive BAT as a reward for viewing ads and use BAT for tips or micropayments to online media.
Content publishers: Web content publishers can receive BAT as a reward as an alternative revenue source to advertising.
Using BAT in the Brave browser
BAT is not just a simple investment product. It is a reward for viewing ads in the Brave browser. It can also be used to give tips and make micropayments to content publishers.
The Brave browser was reported to have 18.3 million monthly active users in December 2021, which is over double the 24 million monthly active users in December 2020.
Users can receive a small amount of BAT for viewing these ads, and then use that BAT to make tips or micropayments to content publishers.
Content publishers can register with Brave to receive BAT rewards from users in addition to working as a creator on platforms including YouTube, X (formerly known as Twitter), Twitch, Vimeo, GitHub, and other websites. As of July 2022, nearly 1,550,000 content publishers have registered with Brave.
While Brave’s main use is rewarding users for viewing ads, advertisers and content publishers also have opportunities to engage in BAT transactions.
Operating company and founding members
The browser is completely open source and developed by Brave Software. The company’s founder, Brendan Eich, has a resume including development of Javascript and Mozilla FireFox.
Another interesting point is that while most blockchain or open source browser development projects act as non-profit organizations, Brave Software is a corporation that had external shareholders to raise funds even before the ICO.
Brave Software was reported to have raised more than 7 million USD from venture capital companies such as Peter Thiel’s Founder Fund by August 2016. Since they gained capital in stock rather than tokens, they have external shareholders who receive a share of Brave’s profits.
In addition to this, they raised about 35 million USD by selling 1 billion tokens in exchange for ETH in their 2017 ICO. Since there were two types of funding in play, they have stakeholders in both stock and BAT.
Brave’s future
Brave’s upcoming features have been published on GitHub. Each feature has an expected release date, but they are all subject to change.
Brave Ads also publish the average click rate (CTR) of ad campaigns hosted on their services and campaign update rates on their official blog. According to the January 2022 report, campaigns on Brave Ads have an average CTR of around 8%, which is higher than the industry average of around 2%.
It appears that it will be recognized as a cost-effective and reliable channel for advertising; expanding its use into areas beyond crypto assets.
