The Brave browser and the Basic Attention Token
The Brave web browser is popular among cryptocurrency fans, since it supports the Basic Attention Token (BAT). BAT is an ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain thats designed to facilitate the transfer value in the digital content and advertising space.
Brave browser users can choose to see advertisements in the browser, and earn BAT tokens in return for their engagement. It is an opt-in program, and users are free block the ads. Users can also reward content creators and websites automatically through the BAT token, making it possible to reward websites and content creators in a very intuitive fashion.
The Basic Attention Token project was founded by Brendan Eich, who is famous as the creator of the JavaScript programming language and as a co-founder of Mozilla. During their ICO, the BAT team raised 156,250 ETH.
BAT is based on Ethereum, and benefits greatly from Ethereum’s infrastructure – BAT holders can access great wallets, decentralized exchanges, and many unique DeFi applications.
At the moment, BAT’s value is pretty much strictly related to the Brave browser, but in the future, it could also be used in other browsers and spaces. As mentioned above, Brave users have the option of either blocking ads or seeing ads in exchange for BAT tokens.
Brave is making progress
Last year, the Brave browser recorded 8.7 million monthly active users. The browser has seen significant growth this year, reaching a milestone of 20 million monthly active users.
Another encouraging statistic for Brave is that the click-through rate for the browser’s advertisements is around 9%, which is immensely better than the industry average of 2%.
In today’s world, privacy is essential for users, and they are tired of being closely observed by tech corporations everywhere they go on the web. Users want to control their searching experience and take back their freedom. Given this context, it’s not too much of a surprise that the Brave browser is gaining popularity.
Brave is also based on Chromium, and this is a great advantage for users. This feature allows Brave to support all of the extensions supported by Chrome. Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are other popular web browsers that are built on Chromium.
Final thoughts
The Basic Attention Token and Brave have the potential to make a major impact on the digital advertising space. Privacy is vital for many internet users, and they are certainly looking to solutions such as Brave. However, Brave is still at the beginning of the road, and it will face a lot of challenges. Its current market share is almost non-existent compared to tech giants like Chrome, which has 66.12% of the market share.
