“Digital advertising is broken. The $330 billion digital advertising industry is failing users, publishers and advertisers.” quotes BAT. This actually may be true. The digital marketplace for ads has become overrun by “mediator” ad exchanges which was once dominated by themselves - advertisers and users.
Thats why, to solve these endemic inefficiencies, Brave has released a new crypto asset, BAT, to respond to a problem of the future.
In this guide, let's have a look at what BAT is and why it is so important. Now, let's dive into the greatness of this crypto asset.
Table of Contents
- What is Basic Attention Token (BAT)?
- The history of BAT
- Advantages of BAT
- How does BAT work?
- Users, Advertisers and Publishers
- Token launch and distribution
- BAT privacy
What is Basic Attention Token (BAT)?
The Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a token based on the Ethereum Blockchain which is used in the Brave browser as a value of exchange. BAT is regarded as one of the most revolutionary concepts in online digital advertising as it solves the endemic inefficiencies and privacy violations hobbing the digital advertising industry. In short, BAT is a new, blockchain-based digital advertising and services platform. The main goal of this token is to eliminate any digital scamming and fraud and to create a new Blockchain and attention-based digital advertising platform. BAT is used as an unit of account between advertisers, publishers, and users.
BAT is the first global private ad platform that has 30 million monthly active users and 10 million daily active users. The current on-chain transaction volume of BAT is $382.2 million and also there are more than 12 million BAT wallets. Basic Attention Token is the first crypto application to have more than 1 million users. There are also million creators from which 543.3K are from Youtube, 130.2K are from Twitter and 72.2K are from Twitch.
Some people conclude that BAT is a digital currency but in fact it is not a digital currency or a commodity. BAT is a utility token meant for its platform. It can be used between advertisers, publishers, and users on the BAT platform, and can be utilized to directly measure, exchange, and verify attention.it is listed in some exchanges such as Binance, Huobi and CoinDCX. BAT is built in a way which can be integrated into the Brave browser. The Brave’s ledger system is a BAT wallet. The token can be used for obtaining services on the platform.
The history of BAT
You might all think that BAT was developed by Brave but no. It is in the hands of Brave now but before it was developed by this software, it was created by a person called Brendan Eich. Brendan Eich not only half-created BAT, he was also the creator of JavaScript and the co-founder of the Mozilla Firefox. He is now currently the CEO of Brave.
Brian Bondy joins as Brave’s and Basic Attention Token’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Bondy is a highly distinguished individual in the internet browsing software industry just like Brendan Eich. Brian Bondy has previous experiences as a software developer at Corel Corporation and software development lead at Khan Academy. He was also a senior software engineer working in Mozilla.
Bat is listed in many famous exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance. Basic Attention Token currently has a market cap of $944,946,867 and as of now, is ranked #77 on CoinMarketCap. The current circulating supply of BAT is 1,497,640,550 BAT whereas the total supply and max supply are 1.5B BAT.
Advantages of BAT
- Fascinating concept
- Variety of uses
- Endlessly increasing users
- Tipping content is allowed
How does BAT work?
Well, unlike Bitcoin or any other crypto, BAT is a utility token that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. This token is used as the currency of the Brave platform which can be exchanged between users, advertisers, and publishers. BAT is used for several different advertising services on the Brave web browser such as to measure, reward, track and sell the user’s attention.. So in short, BAT is the value of exchange inside the Brave Browser created for the sole purpose of creating a better advertisement system.
Publishers create content and put them forward. Digital advertisers approach the publishers and offer them a specific amount of BATs. They two then decide upon an amount based on the attention. Users then get rewarded with some BAT for viewing ads to which they can donate them or use them on the platform for buying services. These tokens can also be redeemed at the Rewards Marketplaces for things like gift cards etc.
Users, Advertisers and Publishers
Users
The Users, there they are, the first and foremost who just browse every day for reasons such as reading articles, watching a video, to buying or selling. Users’ attention is privately monitored on-device in the Brave browser however, their private data stays safe. Users are then rewarded in BAT’s for their attention.
Advertisers
Advertisers just buy space on a person’s website where they can display their content. Advertisers are just brands who want to make people aware of their product. They hope that you spot the ad whilst reading the content. Mostly, the ad’s resemble the products that you were searching for before. They do this by mostly dropping a cookie. Advertisers display their content on a spot in the website where people choose to click on that ad or move further towards purchasing the product. Advertisers achieve higher ROI, better targeting and reduced fraud.
Publishers
The publishers are the content creators; the people who create content and display it on the web. An example of a publisher is a learning site, game site or even a news site. Publishers receive BAT’s based on user attention. Revenue increases as insufficiency decreases. The publishers site is the base for the Advertisers which we looked into before.
Token launch and distribution
When BAT was going to launch, it’s goal was to raise a maximum (156,250 ETH – may change due to exchange rates) of $24 million or a minimum (27,343.8 ETH – may change due to exchange rates) of $5 million USD.
- Launch date and time: 8AM PST May 31 2017 (31/05/2017) block number 3,798,640
- Token launch time-frame: 30 days depending on the block number 3,963,480.
So this means that the token launch will end if the block number 3,963,480 is reached or if the maximum value is raised. Now, you might be wondering what might happen if a low amount is raised. If this happens, ETH can be retrieved by holders of BAT.
The idea of the token distribution was as follows:
- 13.3% of max, that is 200 million BAT to Brave
- 300 million BAT to User growth pool
- 1 billion tokens available to the public at launch (depending upon the ETH raised).
BAT privacy
This platform resides in the three-way system. Data is gathered and stored from Brave user’s devices by the tokens. The BAT platform removes the use of third parties. By doing so, the BAT ecosystem also almost obliterates all possibility of any scam or fraud.
Therefore, you could say that the BAT ecosystem provides a very secure platform for all it’s users, publishers, as well as the advertisers as the scam activities are a major consideration in online marketing and as it’s removed, the platform becomes safe. This means that third parties cannot intervene in the processes.
Another thing is that, when publishers sell space to the advertisers, they also track the content that you look at in their site. As mentioned above, they drop cookies (most sites across the web have cookies). Publishers then give your info (not private info), to the advertiser who in turn, displays more targeted ads across the websites you browse. That’s why most of the ads across the web are relevant to your search.
Brave aims to solve all these problems so basically, the above paragraph doesn’t happen in Brave. Therefore, it is a problem solved by it.
Disclaimer: Digital Wallets News does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
