Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a digital advertising utility token. Since BAT is not a digital currency or commodity it is based on Ethereum technology and used as a unit of account between publishers, users and advertisers on a new digital browser, Brave. The browser prevents advertisers from invading users’ space and privately measures the attention of users on the website. It boasts to be 2 – 8 times faster than Chrome and Safari browsers.

History

BAT was first offered to the public through an initial coin offering on 31st May 2017. The pre-sale raised $35 million in under a minute reaching the hard cap set at 1 billion BAT tokens. The total number of coins that will ever be produced is set at a maximum of 1.5 billion BAT tokens. The company was founded in early 2017 with the BAT token being later offered to the public. The founders Brendan Eich, CEO of Brave, and Brian Bondy the engineering director are well planted in the field of browsers. Brendan has worked as the creators of JavaScript and the co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox browsers.

BAT targets internet writers, publishers and content creators, users and advertisers who have willingly accepted and adopted the technology. Currently, there are over 2000 YouTube creators and 2,700 registered websites on the Brave browser. The company expects continued strong user growth with a monthly target of 4 million downloads and 1 million users.

How does BAT work?

This token aims to save the digital advertising system where internet users’ privacy is highly invaded. On current terms, web users are publicly tracked by advertisers and browsers through various channels. Users privacy is not respected by advertisers since browsers can track what pages you often visit, which accounts you follow and within no time, blow up your phone with myriads of adverts featuring your ‘interests’ which they have discovered. This is all to change with the introduction of the Brave browser which offers a private platform for its users.

BAT is used by advertisers who transact in BAT to purchase advertising space from content creators and the user attention from Brave browser users. The amount of time spent on the ad is labeled ‘attention’ and users can also allow the ads to run on their devices for a small fee, offering basic attention. Publishers and content creators receive advert revenues and user contributions or donations to create better content.

Lastly, users are rewarded with BAT for their attention (where users are privately matched to their interests and anonymously confirmed and presented with meaningful adverts that they are interested in). Users have the choice of whether or not to opt-in to see ads, which use a separate open source component. When users opt-in to receive ads in the platform, ads will be privately matched to their interests and anonymously confirmed.

In November 2017, BAT founders announced that users could now give tokens directly to their favorite channels which increased user and publishers’ activities on Brave.

BAT token

BAT, an ERC20 token, is developed on a smart contract based on the Ethereum blockchain. The token uses the proof of work (PoW) technology. However, to maintain the security of the network, it uses the Zero Knowledge Proof (Zero-Knowledge password proof), ZKP. This is a process that no passwords are to be exchanged when accessing your account. The lack of passwords means no passwords are to be stolen. The users are required to prove that you know some secret questions to the person on the other end.

Why BAT?

BAT has a unique application and is significantly different from the rest of the tradeable coins such as Bitcoin which are not programmed to enable the distinct in-platform problem-solving technology. BAT is developed with a keen interest to maintain high-level internet privacy. Another integral part of the token during its first sale was the creation of the BAT user growth pool (UGP) of 300 million tokens, which would incentivize BAT users, publishers and advertisers to join the BAT platform. Finally, using BAT on Ethereum has allowed for scalability of the platform which is a considerable problem to its mother blockchain, Ethereum. Interestingly enough, the Brave browser already has a donation system in beta which allows for the smooth running of the BAT system especially now that users and publishers can donate BAT on the platform.

Owning BAT

The token can be acquired in two ways; Registering with BAT’s Financial partner Uphold.com which transacts and stores digital and real money or actively trading on various crypto platforms, i.e., Binance, Changelly, Mercatox, Cryptopia, and Bittrex. The traders of the BAT can store their tokens in a crypto wallet; BAT is an ERC20 compatible token and will be stored in ERC20 compatible wallets. During the transaction, the BAT is converted to either Bitcoin or Ethereum depending on preference and could then be stored or actively traded by the user.

In the future, they plan for BAT platform to absorb the Brave Payments ledger, which will migrate from Bitcoin payments to BAT donations to reduce the processing and transaction time.

BAT Price Analysis

The price at the Initial Coin Offering on May 31, 2017, was 1 Ethereum to 6,400 BAT. The owners sold 1 billion BAT worth 156,250 Ethereum which was a promising sign for them. Additionally, they designed a development team with a pool of 200 million tokens and also user growth pools (UGP) with 300 million BAT. The UGP was to be used to incentivize new members to join in. At the moment, BAT is not very volatile as it has reached an all-time high of 0.9007 in January 2018 after a low of 0.0742. Currently, the BAT is trading at an equivalent of 1 BAT to 0.35513 USD and is steadily rising.