Mainstream digital advertising is broken. While ads seemingly create a win-win situation whereby users can browse the internet for free and publishers can earn money, they often violate personal privacy and actually cost more money. Advertisers are granted access to your personal identity and online habits to maintain a monopoly on your attention while making a hefty profit. Furthermore, the display of ads means that pages take longer to load and use up more of your data. The Brave browser seeks to solve these issues with its utility token, Basic Attention Token (BAT).
What is the Brave browser?
Brave browser is a free web browser that actively blocks ads, mal-advertisements, and trackers. This means that your browsing experience on Brave is safer and faster than on a typical web browser. Plus, Brave is built using Chromium, the open-source software that powers Google Chrome, so you may still use your favorite plugins and extensions. The unique aspect of Brave is that you can choose to enable and control what type of ads you see by configuring the settings. So you would only see ads that are tailored to your preferences without compromising your privacy while earning rewards.
How does BAT play a part in Brave?
The Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a cryptocurrency built on the Ethereum blockchain and the native token of Brave browser. If you enable ads on the browser, you may earn up to 70% in ad revenue in the form of BAT. You may then exchange BAT for cash, trade it for other cryptocurrencies, hold it in your digital wallet, or pay it forward by tipping content creators.
Having control over what kind of ads you see also benefits the advertisers. They can be more certain of reaching an engaged audience and not waste money on poor ad targeting, while at the same time protecting the privacy of its users.
Meanwhile, publishers who create content may also place ads on their website to earn BAT for every view and/or click. This is in addition to the tipping feature that you might use to support content creators. If you prefer not to give tips manually, you may configure Brave to divide up your BAT in your wallet and pay content creators directly based on how much time you spent on their sites.
This is exactly the goal of BAT — distributing advertising money efficiently between advertisers, publishers, and consumers of online marketing content.
It's important to note that BAT is a finite asset with a maximum supply of 1.5 billion BAT. This means that each token represents a known percentage of the total supply of BAT and so investors can be assured that it has a known value. When all of the supply is in circulation, BAT will be considered fully diluted. However, that doesn’t mean consumer and publisher rewards go away! Advertisers pay for ad placements using BAT, and that is re-distributed equitably to consumers and publishers.
How to Earn BAT Using Brave Browser
There are several ways to earn cryptocurrency using the Brave browser. Here’s how you can earn revenue in the form of BAT while browsing the internet:
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Install Brave browser
The most obvious first step is to install the Brave browser. You may earn $5 worth of BAT by just using the browser for 30 days. And each month, you may receive random grants worth 20-40 BATs.
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Watch ads
As mentioned in the previous section, you can earn BAT by viewing ads. After downloading the browser, click on the BAT Triangle logo at the top right corner where the extension plugins are and turn on Brave Rewards and Ads. You can choose the maximum number of ads per hour on the Rewards Settings page.
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Create content
If you’re a blogger, podcaster or YouTuber, you can join the Brave Rewards Program that enables your followers to send BAT as tips. You would need to add your site to Brave Rewards and create an account at Brave Creator. Once your site is verified, you’re eligible to earn BAT.
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Refer friends
As a Brave Creator, you’ll be provided with a referral link to invite your friends to download the Brave browser. When they download the browser through your link, you may earn $1 to $7.5 worth of BAT.
Advantages of Brave Browser
BAT rewards are one benefit of using Brave browser. Other advantages when using Brave browser include:
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Safe browsing activity as Brave actively blocks ads, mal-advertisements, and trackers.
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Being able to use your favorite plug-ins and extensions as Brave is built using Chromium which is the software that also powers Google Chrome.
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No activity sharing with any third-party as your behavior across websites never leaves Brave browser.
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Identity remains private when making transactions.
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All parties—consumers, advertisers, and content creators—can coexist in a safe, private, and mutually beneficial ecosystem.
Future of Basic Attention Token (BAT)
2022 will likely see an expansion of BAT utility as more than just a reward for displaying and viewing ads. According to BAT Roadmap 2.0, we may see the implementation of:
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BAT utility for search engines
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BAT for e-commerce
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BAT for VPN
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BAT rewards for content verified on IPNS
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BAT for content pinning on IPFS (file sharing)
With over 40 million monthly active users, it’s safe to say that Brave is growing to become a mainstream web browser with BAT being the backbone of its growth. Soon, we may see mass adoption of Brave and the accessibility of decentralized finance (DeFi) to everyone.
Learn About DeFi
As the Brave browser works on building a decentralized web, you may want to get on building your knowledge on DeFi to take full advantage of the ecosystem. Get CoinGecko’s How To DeFi ebook now!
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