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What is the Basic Attention Token? Comprehensive Guide to BAT
BAT or the Basic Attention Token, is a cryptocurrency that is aiming to solve a very specific, and well-known problem. The advertising industry is plagued by several issues, including, but not limited to advertiser fraud, user abuse, an abundance of trackers causing slow load times, and a bloated user experience. Brave Software Inc. created the Basic Attention Token as part of their plan to redefine, and reshape how the internet treats users, serves advertisements, and collects user information.
You’re probably wondering where to buy BAT cryptocurrency and if it’s safe. We can help you make that decision by explaining how to buy the Basic Attention Token and why you can trust it. Or, if you weren’t wondering where to get BAT, you probably are now.
BAT Pros & Cons
Pros
Brave Browser is based on Chrome, so the user experience is familiar
Ever-expanding ecosystem (Reddit, Twitter, Website)
BAT has existed since 2015, and has a trusted track record
Cons
Potential ways to game the system
Technical barriers to adoption
Our Favorite Cryptocurrency Exchange for BAT
Here’s how to buy Basic Attention Tokens – first get yourself a crypto wallet. Then head over to Coinbase, one of our favorite cryptocurrency exchanges and purchase the amount of BAT you want.
- Beginner-friendly UI make it easy to make quick buys
- One of the oldest and most reliable exchanges
- Earn $200 in free crypto after completing sign-up process. Terms apply.
- Variety of products including exchange, staking, wallet
- Advanced Trading options for experienced traders
Disrupting the Status Quo
Currently, the model of advertising on the Internet is as follows: Publishers pay the ad network to host advertisements on their platform. The ad-network provider and the publisher use user data to optimize the ads. This way, you’re always receiving advertisements you’re likely to interact with based on your various interactions on the internet. If you’re wondering why you always see ads for a certain product, this is the reason. The user does not get to choose whether or not they see ads, and receives no monetary compensation for the attention they’ve given to the ad. Furthermore, whatever data is collected as a result viewing the ad, is monetized by the company, and you don’t receive a cut. Way harsh.
Brave Software Inc. is creating an ecosystem of users, applications, and services fueled by the Basic Attention Token and their signature web interface, the Brave Browser. By using the Brave Browser, users can opt into advertisements, and receive BAT as payment for their time, attention, and data.
Brave Attention Token Ratings
Supply
Max : 1,500,000
Network Speed
Low (15 – 30 Tx/s)
Disbursement
Rating: Medium
Reason: The top 100 accounts own about 75% of the total token supply. Many of the top 100 accounts belong to exchanges, which aggregate the ownership of BAT from all of their users. More than 200,000 Ethereum accounts are holding the BAT, which makes it one of the most widely held tokens on the network.
Developer Engagement
Rating: High
Reason: Brave Software Inc. is lead by the founder of JavaScript itself, Brendan Eich. Together with senior engineers from popular projects such as Mozilla, BAT has a team stacked with talented technicians, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Lastly, being a token hosted on Ethereum, BAT gets to piggy back off of the development efforts of Etheruem developers.
Liquidity
Rating: Medium
Reason: BAT is one of the more popular tokens in the world, as it has a legitimate use case, and millions of users. It is for this reason that many exchanges list BAT, and have provided trading pairs for liquidity.
History of BAT
The Basic Attention Token was launched in 2017, through an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) model wherein 1 billion tokens were sold in less than 30 seconds. The token sale was conducted by the company behind the token, Brave Software Inc. An additional 500,000,000 tokens exist in reserve, and is ready to be allocated to developers and users for community growth.
The founders of BAT are from other notable, privacy-oriented projects such as the Mozilla and TOR browsers. Blockchain and cryptocurrency has enabled new features and paradigms to exist within privacy-oriented browsers, and so the founders embarked on a new project aimed at “Fixing the web”.
In November 2019, Brave Software Inc. released 300,000 BAT in the form of user grants in celebration of achieving a cross-platform browser. The Brave Browser, integrated with BAT is now available on Android, iOS, Windows, and Linux. Brave captures a respectable market share of ten million users, allowing everyone to participate in the shared economy of advertising, publishing, and tipping.
Advantages of BAT: Watch Ads, Make Bank
The main advantage of BAT is that you get paid to watch advertisements. This is in stark contrast to how every other advertisement network works. When viewing ads on the Brave network, you earn 70% of the share of what was paid to serve the advertisement. If you consider Google or Facebook within this conversation, you earn nothing from the advertisements you see on their platform, and get no compensation for the data collected.
Brave Software has since integrated “tipping” options into various popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Twitch, Youtube, and Reddit. This only increases the value offering of BAT cryptocurrency. Users are earning BAT from browsing the internet, and Brave is providing more and more places to spend or tip your BAT to content creators.
Disadvantages of BAT: Fluctuations Are a Pain
BAT is still in its early stages, and has several of the largest internet Goliath’s as competitors. While the mission of Brave Software is noble, and perhaps a more ethical approach to advertising, they are up against the momentum of “the way things have always been”.
The BAT is not a stable asset. It fluctuates in value like most other cryptocurrencies. YouTube does offer you a share of the advertisements served on your channel, and this is paid out in USD. This form of income is more predictable than what BAT is offering at this time. While you can just convert your BAT to a stable coin like DAI or USDT, this is far more advanced than what most beginners to cryptocurrency are used to.
BAT Frequently Asked Questions
BAT is awarded by Brave Software Inc as an incentive to adopt the Brave Browser. Although you can’t withdraw BAT from the browser wallet directly, if you’re a brave publisher, you can then tip yourself from all the grants, and advertisements that you watch.
The total supply of BAT is 1.5 billion tokens. 500 million tokens are locked for grant programs, and developer incentives. 1 Billion tokens were sold in the initial coin offering that took place in 2017.
Most cryptocurrency wallets support BAT, as BAT is an ERC-20 token. If you’re a brave publisher, then you will need to set yourself up with an Uphold wallet. If you’re just planning on holding BAT as an investment, then Exodus, Atomic, or any hardware wallet, such as the Ledger Nano X, will do just fine.
BAT stands for Basic Attention Token. BAT is integrated directly into the Brave Browser. The browser and the cryptocurrency are completely distinct, but the browser uses the cryptocurrency.
BAT is not a unique cryptocurrency, other than its built itself a nice niche in the cryptocurrency industry as a token that serves an actual use case in marketing, advertising, and content compensation.
BAT stands for “Basic Attention Token”. The idea that anyone, not just the Brave Browser, can integrate the token into their ecosystem and allow users to be compensated for their attention.
The meaning of Basic Attention Token is that until now according to the BAT Website, the advertising industry is broken, filled with middleman and fraudsters. This hurts users, publishers and advertisers. The remedy for this problem is a token that is intended to compensate users for their time, attention, and ultimately the data associated with their interaction with advertisements.
Yes, simply create yourself a profile on the Brave Publishers site. Then verify any amount of channels you wish to earn BATs on. For example, you can earn BATs for free through Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, and even GitHub. If you own your own website, then you can verify your website and include it in the brave publisher network. You will need to set up an UpHold account in order to withdraw your earnings, but UpHold is also free.
There aren’t many exchanges that allow you to use PayPal to purchase cryptocurrencies. Check out this article for all the exchanges you can use to purchase cryptocurrencies with PayPal.
BAT is not the same as Ethereum. Ethereum can be thought of as a token platform, wherein many tokens are sub-tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Most of these tokens fall into the category of token called ERC-20. BAT is an ERC-20 token, which just means it was build, and conforms to a standard set out by the Ethereum developer community.
Brave Software Inc. decided the best way to encourage adoption and use of the BAT, would be through a browser, called the Brave Browser. The Brave Browser has many appealing features such as built in ad-blockers, and javascript tracker blockers. The browser is the only way you can earn BAT through engaging with advertisements.
While most cryptocurrency are speculative assets with little to no inherent value, if a solid use case is ever defined, and adopted by the public, this is the best way to predict whether or not a token will “moon”.
