What is this all about?

I want to find examples of blockchain and cryptocurrencies that are already at the point of being useable, try them out and share posts with my thoughts on how it went. I am not going to get into too much technical detail, as I wil focus on the experience as a user, but at the bottom of the post I will link to other articles for more thorough documentation about the underlying technology.

There is the occasional embedded video but don't worry they dont take you away from the page.

Brave and Basic Attention Token (BAT)

The charm of Brave/BAT is how they work together, but I'll start with a brief summary of each and then explain how they work together.

What is Brave?

Brave Browser is an Open Source browser, created by Brave Software Inc. It is described as a browser, which not only protects you from unwanted content and trackers, but also delivers a fast fresh way to browse.

What is BAT?

The same development team that created the Brave brower also created the Basic Attention Token (BAT). The token is an ERC20 token that runs on the ethereum blockchain. The token's white paper has a short and clear explanation for what BAT is;

"What does BAT stand for and what is it?

Basic Attention Token. The BAT, a token based on the Ethereum technology, is a unit of exhange in a new Blockchain based digital advertising system. User attention is anonymously monitored in the Brave browser and publishers are rewarded accordingly with BATs. Users also get a share of BATs for participating."

Full white paper available here: chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://basicattentiontoken.org/BasicAttentionTokenWhitePaper-4.pdf

How Brave and BAT Work Together

Brave and BAT work seemlessly together. After downloading brave you can turn on your Brave Rewards wallet (and typically claim your first $5 BAT grant at the same time but more on that later);

As well as BAT acquired from grants, you can also 'Add Funds' to your wallet, which then gives you a BAT Address to send the token into from some external wallet. In the future, you will be able to Opt In to view ads in Brave, and doing that will reward your attention with BAT Tokens. Having acquired some BAT your reward wallet will show how much is available, for example;

The Monthly $500,000 BAT Grant

Brave have an ongoing promotion whereby every month $500,000 of BAT tokens are up for grabs, granted in $5 worth of BAT per user who claims from the pot. This is done by clicking your Brave Wallet icon, then clicking Reward Settings, then claim the grant and...

So far the ways I have increased my BAT are by either claiming from the monthly grant or using the 'Add Funds' function. I am very interested to see how seemlessly the soon coming opt in ads will work.

Where can you spend BAT?

You can use your BAT to tip content providers on platforms like;

YouTube

Twitch

Wordpress Sites

If you are already actively putting out content on these channels and want to sign up to be a Brave Creator, enabling site visitors to tip you, then you can sign up here. This part of the process does involve setting up an 'Uphold' wallet, which is where your tips will work their way into.

Here is an example of me using my wallet to tip CryptoLark on YouTube;

How have I been using BAT?

On Brave's web site it is clear that a big part of their mission is giving you security online and peeling away involuntary ads that are pushed under your noses and where revenue is made for your time, but who receives the financial benefit of that is completely out of your hands.

I do like that - the use that particularly stuck with me is YouTube. From what I read online, the bar is getting higher to get your channel to the point where you can monetize your channel. Just going with some searching online I am seeing that the bar is a 'minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours in the past 12 months', which for a new comer or for someone that is covering a really niche interest area it puts making money out of reach. I have some friends with YouTube channels and whether it be recordings of gaming sessions or using footage taken with drones, that content is more relevant to me because its could be content that I am indirecty involved in or places I have been, and being keen to reward its production where YouTube will not then I can tip directly to them using grant BAT, or in the future use BAT I have earned by giving ad providers my attention.

Conclusions

From my own experience of the Brave browser over the last couple of months it felt easy from the start. During the installation Brave saw and offered to migrate in my Chrome bookmarks and any saved credential information for websites I had used and stored in Chrome. That good first impression never really dropped away, from the uncluttered and visually nice home page, through to the browser genuinely behaving quickly and like it should. I am going to keep using brave and I'm going to keep using BAT to tip the content providers I watch!

Download Links

The only download you need to get the experience is the brave browser, which can be downloaded below. Having signed up as a Brave Creator to try the YouTube channel linking process that does give me a brave download refferal link, this doesnt change your download experience but if you would rather the vanilla link then you can download it here.

Other Articles

Thanks for reading!