The popular cryptocurrency-funded Brave browser has recently started rolling outs its built-in Basic Attention Token (BAT) tipping feature, a move that has been seeing social media users tip their favorite content creators.
The team behind the browser, devised by JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, has been working on the feature and with the launch of its new Chromium-based desktop browser it came. Currently, it’s only possible to tip publishers, although it’ll be possible to tip Reddit and Twitter users in the future.
On the BATProject subreddit, various users have been sharing who they sent their first tips to. Some sent their tokens to the Washington Post, while others decided to support Wikipedia. It’s worth noting Brave airdropped BAT tokens to those who installed its new desktop browser.
Brave is notably a privacy-oriented browser that has a built-in ad blocker, as well as a third-party tracker blocker. Its model is based on the BAT, which its users can use to reward publishers for their content, either through a fixed percentage of based on the attention they give them.
The browser has been gaining a lot of attention and with it, the BAT token has been quietly rising. According to CryptoCompare data, it rose from a $0.16 two-week low to about $0.26, before its price fell back down to its current $0.237.
Brave’s new version now fully supports Google Chrome extensions, and is reportedly 22% faster than the last one.
Growing Popularity
The Brave browser has been gaining a lot of popularity, so much so that it went from 4 million monthly active users in early September to 4.6 million in early October. As covered, the browser’s Android version has been downloaded over 10 million times the Google Play store.
Its popularity hasn’t just been growing because of its built-in tipping and ad blocking features, but also because of its privacy and potential rewards. The browser has built-in Tor support, which means users can easily browse privately, with trackers being automatically blocked.
Moreover, its Brave Rewards program has seen public trials get launched and will reportedly let users earn as much as $70 per year in BAT. Reportedly, users who choose to see ads will receive 70% of the revenue from ads “delivered directly to the user in a separate ad tab,” and 15% from ads that appear on websites, called “publisher ads.”
As CryptoGlobe covered, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase also recently revealed it’s considering adding several cryptoassets, one of them being BAT. One of those being considered, ZRX, has been listed.
