Basic Attention Token (BAT) — advertising in a new way

Basic Attention Token is closely related to the Brave browser — together, they form a tool for creating a fundamentally new advertising network where users are rewarded for their activity. The BAT token is used as the main currency in which rewards for users, payment for advertising services by advertisers and earnings for publishers who place ads are expressed.

General site description

The platform runs on the Ethereum blockchain and includes several key components:

• An advertising exchange where advertisers can "buy" users' attention.
• Analytics and monitoring panels, attention evaluation system.
• Machine learning algorithms are responsible for ensuring that the user is shown precisely the ads that are of interest to him.
• The reward system, etc.

The BAT token is used as a unit of account on the platform. Users are rewarded in BAT for their attention, publishers and content creators earn ad revenue in BAT, and advertisers use BAT to buy advertising space and the attention of potential customers.

BAT functions not only on the Ethereum network but also on other chains, including Polygon, Avalanche, Near, and Energi.

How are BAT and Brave connected?

Brave is an open-source web browser focused on privacy. It blocks ads on websites by default but integrates the BAT ad network. Available on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux.

The two main ways Brave integrates BAT are:

• Brave Payments. Software that allows members to support their favourite content creators (i.e. YouTubers, etc.). By default, the system analyzes user actions and time spent viewing content and calculates the result at the end of the month. But also, participants can independently make contributions at any time. This requires a Basic Attention Token wallet.
• Members who choose to subscribe to the BAT Ads network view ads in a variety of formats - push notifications, full-page content, landing pages, private ad slots, and more. Part of the money paid for showing ads goes to the publisher, and part goes to the user.

However, the use of BAT will not be limited to the browser, although this is the main direction. The team plans to create extensions for other browsers to implement similar functionality and add chat functions and game components.

2022 has been a very important year for BAT in terms of development. This is especially true for the progress in creating the Brave multi-chain wallet and joining 80+ dApps to the Brave Wallet affiliate program.

What problems does BAT solve?

The creators of the Basic Attention Token highlight several problems that users face on a daily basis on the Internet.

Firstly, the slowdown of sites and additional traffic costs (for example, when using mobile Internet). Advertising takes a long time to load and "weighs" quite a lot. It is estimated that with active web surfing, up to half of web traffic can go to advertising.

Secondly, low security. Along with the usual honest ads, malicious ads occasionally come across that allow hackers to gain access to confidential information stored on the device. And for this, you don’t even have to follow the links.

Third, minimal privacy. Advertised publishers track and store user actions and then sell the details of each to ad exchanges, resulting in more targeted ads for people to see. And if you left your personal data somewhere, then they can also be sold.

Advertisers and publishers also have problems. For example, if a user has an ad blocker installed, then no one earns anything.

Conclusion

The ecosystem that results from the combination of Brave + BAT shows excellent results. The token is growing in price due to its demand among all participants in the process. It reached its absolute maximum ($1.9) in November 2021.

Brave blocks ads, ads, and tracking to keep your online activity safe, private, and faster. The browser can be used just like a standard browser, or you can consider the possibility of additional earnings. For example, to receive BAT tokens from advertisers by viewing ads of interest.

At the same time, publishers also receive a bonus if people click on ads from their site. Therefore, it is profitable for them to place only high-quality and attractive ads - from which, in the end, absolutely everyone benefits.