Last week I stepped away from my daily routine, environment, and work. Of course, even a slow week in crypto generates plenty of news and often on Friday afternoons. Missing the crew, I stopped at the studio on my way back into town.
Coinbase managed to drop a short-list of potential cryptocurrency candidates that it may entertain making available on its platform. Basic Attention Token happened to be one of these tokens, which I have a general familiarity from earlier reads and uses.
What is so lovely about the Basic Attention Token (BAT) is that there is actual product that is useful to even those not interested or involved in cryptocurrency. BAT is to be used with the Brave Web Browser. I briefly used Brave earlier in the year but had a few cumbersome moments that I returned to Chrome.
In an effort to clean up and follow up my limited remarks on the show, I decided to revisit Brave. There have been significant improvements since I last used it and additional functionality worth highlighting. Brave is free to use. It is a web browser. Download it here or directly visit brave.com.
The Brave FAQs do a terrific job of explaining Brave Payments. The following is an overview geared toward noncrypto enthusiasts who may be interested in participating in the ecosystem and supporting the concept that makes this browser beautiful.
I understand the concept behind Brave and BAT to be more of a user driven advertising platform. Ideally eliminating the data mining method of inundating users with ads related to their recent searches. From their whitepaper, I recall an interesting piece was that it would be able to measure user attention based on active windows and reward publishers based on engagement.
The Brave web browser is designed to block third party tracking and advertisements. For example, if “golf” is included in my search in other browsers or on social media platforms; immediately ads begin to appear from golf suppliers or based on the websites that I visit, related advertisements appear. A secure and anonymous algorithm power the platform, so contributions truly are anonymous to Brave and all other entities.
One can elect the search engine of choice. I have been a DuckDuckGo fan since their inception.
Advertisers, publishers, and content creators can use BAT to pay for user attention.
Individuals are able to support favorite sites using BAT with the use of a Brave wallet found in the browser settings. Currently, Brave will provide 15 BAT to new users. The team has made it incredibly easy, literally a toggle switch and an exercise to prove humanity.
For those interested in continuing to reward sites, there are instructions on obtaining additional funds. This is a one-way ticket. Once BAT is in a Brave wallet, it can only be used as intended; to reward website publishers at the holder’s discretion. BAT cannot be earned, purchased, and transferred out of the Brave Wallet to be traded on an exchange. Use it or lose it. Tokens have an expiration (at least those rewarded by Brave here).
To reward content creators, navigate to preferences and payments. Browsing history appears in the payments section of Brave Preferences with the option to include the provider in the allocation reward.
Now that I have had an opportunity to revisit Brave, I am looking forward to employing it as my default browser. For content creators interested in exploring Brave, I suggest starting with the FAQs. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts can find additional trading and investing information at Seeking Cryptos.
This post is provided for informational purposes, nothing herein shall be taken as legal or financial advice.