Investigating the Top 50 Cryptocurrencies, Part 20/50: Basic Attention Token (BAT)

Basic Attention Token, created by the people behind Java and Mozilla Firefox, is an attempt to fix the monetization/distribution of online advertising.

_{source: https://basicattentiontoken.org}

The BAT team have already made waves with their wonderful Brave browser, a browser designed with user anonymity and security at heart. Brave is a great browser that we’ll look at more closely in a minute.

The idea behind this token is simple: BAT wants to fix advertising. They’re tired of watching Facebook and Google gobble up 99% of all the growth in the monetization of digital content.

What if there was a way to remove those middlemen from the equation, putting the rewards of attention back in the hands of publishers and content consumers? This is the perfect application of blockchain technology.

This post will go deep into what BAT is. I’m excited for this project - it’s a realistic and desirable project that could make a real difference in 2018.

About This Series + Disclaimer

This post is part of a new series where I investigate each of the top 50 coins by marketcap (based on coinmarketcap.com's rankings on October 11, 2017). My goal is to help steem’s userbase become the most knowledgable blockchain community in the world.

Disclaimer: I am not an investment expert and will not be providing investment advice. I will teach you about the top 50 coins, and you can do what you want with that info.

The Basic Attention Token

Here’s how the BAT works.

_{The BAT Token Logo}

It all takes place within Brave. You have to use that browser to be a part of the BAT ecosystem, at least for now. Brave monitors your web activity (opt-in only) and anonymously uses that data to pair your interests to relevant ads.

When you see an ad via the BAT system, you are rewarded for seeing it. While the publisher gets the majority of the money, a small chunk of it goes to you for seeing the ad.

That means ads are better targeted, there’s no middleman like Google to siphon profits, and both the publisher AND the content consumer get paid. It’s win/win/win. Everybody is incentivized - advertisers get good rates on effective ad placements, publishers earn more money, and consumers see better ads and earn some cash in the process.

A lot of the success of BAT depends on Brave. Is it a good browser? Let’s take a look.

The Brave Browser

It’s easy enough to download Brave. All you do is head to https://brave.com/ and click the download button on the home page.

The home page of Brave is gorgeous. You can see that I’ve already saved a few minutes of my life from the app’s intense ad-blocker. They keep track of how much time you save (ads take time to load) - even with only a little usage of this app, I’m two minutes ahead!

The BAT token will reintroduce ads to replace some of the BS ads they block. The idea being that you opt-in for ads and get a bit of BAT token yourself each time you see one.

It’s hard to review a browser… all I can really say is that Brave has everything I could ask for. It seems like one of the best web browsers ever. I feel ashamed that I keep using Chrome when this beautiful open-source software is sitting on my computer…

OK, here’s the pledge: I am going to start using Brave. I am literally closing Chrome right now and switching to Brave.

Seriously if you haven’t downloaded Brave yet, give it a try. This is a simple way to vote for blockchain over centralized stuff like Chrome.

The BAT Roadmap for Late 2017/Early 2018

Here’s what the official BAT roadmap offers for the next few months of development:

This list is written in a non-exciting way, but a lot is going on here. The goal of the next four months is to build up the backend of this system. Here’s a layman’s version of the goals:

-Create a Platform for Advertisers to Access the BAT System With
-Let Users Opt-in to the system
-Improve the Machine Learning and other algorithms that pair ads to users

They want to make the whole thing run more smoothly. The focus is on getting people engaged in this system and making the technology work better.

In a world of blockchain hype, this may seem lackluster. It’s not. This is the real work, the nuts-and-bolts of building blockchain systems that can scale to a mainstream level. I like this roadmap.

BAT Token Distribution

From the BAT FAQ, here is the token distribution:

In percentages, here is how that breaks down:

66.6~% of tokens sold via public crowdsale.

13.3~% of tokens reserved for the development team.

20% of tokens reserved for the “User Growth Pool”

This is pretty good. They’re only holding ~10% of tokens to reward themselves and other developers, which is a conservative number. When lots of ICO projects are reserving as much as 50% for themselves, I consider this some reasonable distribution.

The Team Behind BAT

The BAT team has some of the best people in the entire blockchain space. Here’s a brief look at a few of the major players:

all images from https://basicattentiontoken.org/about/

Brandon Elich, Founder

Brandon created Javascript and co-founded Mozilla/Firefox… what more can you ask for in terms of credentials? As a guy who has been at the forefront of digital technology for more than two decades now, he’s exactly the kind of person who I want to see building a blockchain project.

Brian Bondy, Co-Founder / Engineer

Brian previously worked with Brandon at Mozilla as well as putting in time at other digital uber-projects Evernote and Khan Academy. He’s in the top 0.1% of StackOverflow users, which goes to show his consistent dedication to the world of development.

Yan Zhu, Security & Privacy Engineering

As a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former contributor to TOR, Yan’s credentials really speak for themselves. She has a clear history of working towards increasing the privacy and autonomy of internet users and is a perfect fit for the role of “Privacy Engineering” at BAT.

Scott Locklin, Smart Contracts & Economics

Scott is the obligatory finance member of the team, bringing experience from the world of quantitative finance to help BAT design a functional token economy. He rounds out the overall experience of the core BAT team.

Market History

An interesting graph for one of blockchain’s safest tokens. There are so many hypecoins making huge gains this year, while BAT chugs along within a pretty small range. Honestly I am quite surprised that the token hasn’t had any hockey stick phase yet.

This seems like a good buy for now. Inevitably any great token gets its day of hype, and for BAT it hasn’t happened yet. If I was trading, I might buy some of these tokens right now.

Final Thoughts

This is one of my favorite tokens I’ve looked at so far! It is always refreshing to see a blockchain project with a team and a humble goal.

BAT is pursuing an achievable goal that would have a major impact on how money flows throughout the internet. The intended “opt-in” system might not replace all the world’s advertising. But if it can take even a small chunk of the money away from Facebook/Google, that will put a lot of cash into the pockets of publishers where it belongs.

Small businesses can keep an eye on BAT for undervalued advertising opportunities. I suspect that there will be some very good options for targeted ads at a much lower price than the current options.

If BAT becomes successful, the rates will adjust upwards. Above all else I encourage people to keep an eye on buying ads via BAT! This is the biggest opportunity for non-devs regarding BAT right now.

What is your opinion on BAT? Do you like the Brave browser?