What is Basic Attention Token?
Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a cryptocurrency created with the intention of developing a fair advertising economy for people browsing the internet. It incentivises users for watching ads of their choice on the Brave web browser.
BAT is the brain-child of Breden Eich, the co-founder of Mozilla Firefox and JavaScript Programming language. Basic Attention Token operates on the Ethereum blockchain network. BAT is integrated natively on the Brave Web Browser.
Before we dive into the finer detail of Basic Attention Token, let’s have a look at the advertising industry.
The world of advertising
The advent of the internet brought around huge changes to advertisements, with businesses transitioning from things like billboards and magazine adverts to highly targeted adverts on platforms like Google, Facebook and Youtube.
Let’s understand the advertisement hierarchy. Suppose you browsed the internet for a new mobile phone and after a while, you land on a website to read your favourite weekly blog or news. While you are reading, you’ll have likely been bombarded with mobile phone advertisements. This is because the browser you’ve been using is using your browsing data to direct ads to you. The website owner is the publisher and the advertisers place the adverts, based on traffic, demographic, browsing history and any other relevant data, to you as a potential customer. The customer currently isn’t rewarded for viewing these adverts.
BAT is trying to change this by making the users of their browser the centre of the advertising ecosystem and incentivising you to view advertisements rather than financing an advertising platform and selling your browsing data.
How does Basic Attention Token work?
Brave Browser’s default setting is to block trackers, ads, and malware. However, you can opt in to the Brave Rewards Program. The rewards program incentivises you in BAT tokens for watching ads if and when you choose to do so.
When you sign up for the program, your browsing data is stored on their blockchain network. This data is utilised to direct ads to you.
Viewers are incentivised with BAT tokens and publishers are also paid for their traffic. Advertisers are also reassured that the people viewing their marketing are more engaged, as the decision to watch or view an advertisement is in the hands of you, the user. They are then charged based on the number of people watching their ads.
The ecosystem BAT has created means a fairer advertisement economy for everyone throughout the entire process. It also eliminates the dominance of dishonest platforms that can exploit users’ data.
Security
Brave secures users’ data by building the right to privacy throughout their software. The data is stored on a blockchain network which in itself adds significant security while ensuring it’s inaccessible to third party companies, preventing tracking software and malware across the Brave platform.
The utility of Basic Attention Token
BAT is the native currency on the Brave platform. Users, advertisers and publishers exchange advertising incentivisation by utilising BAT tokens.
BAT is a finite asset with a maximum circulation of 1 billion. You can hold BAT tokens, exchange it for fiat currencies or you can also trade it for other cryptocurrencies.
