Testing of “ad display and delivery” is now live on the developer version of the Brave browser, which is the platform for the Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency. The developer versions of the browser are roughly equivalent to an alpha version, and according to the download page are “very early iterations and aren’t for the faint-of-heart.”
This does not mean, however, that users can start receiving BAT rewards for watching ads. That functionality will go live within “several weeks” on the browser’s beta version, at which time “Users will […] be able to earn 70% of the revenue share” from ads on delivered Brave (the Brave company receives the rest).
Brave and BAT Lately
BAT, an ERC-20 token, is the currency of what is meant to be a new kind of consensual online advertising ecosystem. BAT runs on Brave, an open-source browser built on Chromium that blocks invasive advertisements and trackers.
Brave/BAT instead facilitates a direct connection between users and advertisers. BAT payments made to users can be used as donations, as payments to content creators, or traded on cryptoasset exchanges – or just used as money if someone will accept it.
The company’s blog says that direct advertising will always be opt-in – meaning that Brave still retains the function of a privacy-focused browser even without these features turned on.
Ultimately, Brave will support two types of ads: User ads and publisher-integrated ads. User ad functionality is described above – users must opt-in – but publisher-integrated ads provide opportunities for verified publishers to present ads within their websites or channels.
CryptoGlobe recently reported that 5.5 million users per month are now using Brave on various operating systems. Brave/BAT report that 28,000 verified publishers are signed up on the platform. 2018 has seen some big partnerships for the company, for example with the Dow Jones Media Group and the DuckDuckGo private search engine.
The current online advertisement reality which Brave seek to disrupt, fueled by invasive tracking of users’ actions, is widely thought to be broken and even “dystopian.”
