Basic Attention Token (BAT) now available in Brave Browser

in #technology • 7 years ago (edited)

As I've mentioned before, I've been using the Brave Browser since they launched last January. Until today, I've been using it to automatically send BTC to frequently used web sites.

A couple months ago, they announced that they'd be switching to their own token, the "Basic Attention Token" (BAT).

Today, I received a message telling me that my browser had been updated, and needed to be restarted, so I did. When I got into the browser again, I got a notification that my payments had been processed. This was strange, because they normally process at the beginning of the month, so I went into my wallet. I was surprised to see the following message:

Looks like they've made the switch!

#cryptocurrency #basicattentiontoken #brave #news
7 years ago in #technology by
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     7 years ago 

    I recently reset my computer and was debating re-installing the Brave browser. For some reason, I'm more excited about seeing how BAT works out than the BTC through Coinbase. I tried the BTC thing for a while. The hard thing for me was it felt a little like my money was disappearing into an abyss... felt like is was mostly unclaimed.

    I love how Brave is innovating. I hope it can hang on long enough for web content producers to leverage for income -- and do away with the crap adds and fake stories from Outbrain, Taboola, et al.

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     7 years ago 

    I get that. The number of sites that haven't activated their wallets is disheartening. I funded it by mining at nicehash, but psychologically, I'm not sure how long I would have kept funding it if I had to load it from cash.

    Seems like they're being slow and methodical, though, so hopefully the adoption rate will pick up.

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       7 years ago 

      Thanks, hadn't noticed this yet, giving it a spin!

      Do you know when they are going to introduce payments to us for being advertised to?

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       7 years ago 

      Do you know when they are going to introduce payments to us for being advertised to?

      I don't know. According to the images that they insert when they strip an ad, it's been "coming soon" for almost 2 years now. I just clicked on one of those, and saw that the info page has been updated. Guess it's not coming 'til 2018 at the earliest. That link says:

      Note: In 2017 we are focusing on the Basic Attention Token (BAT), and the ecosystem that it will enable, offering users and publishers a better way to fund the Web. With BAT (along with staking users with a share of tokens), Brave will work to offer privately-matched, anonymously-verified ads as an option to our users.

      As I understand it, one fairly large caveat to be aware of about the payments to us is that (because of the potential for abuse) I don't think they're planning to give us a way to withdraw from the in-browser wallet, so they're only payments in a very loose sense. I might be wrong about this, but I think that the only thing we'll be able to use BAT for in our browser's wallet is to pay publishers. So my recommendation is not to put too much into the wallet at any one time. Otherwise, if the price of BAT rises, that value will be inaccessible for most purposes. I went 4-6 months on $10 in bitcoin because the BTC price was rising so much faster than my $5 monthly payments were going out.

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       7 years ago 

      Hmm, that caveat is a pretty massive one. IMO you have to take the potential for abuse and design it out instead of locking it out. That will kill the platform. Who will want to only "get paid" for advertising, only to redistributed that payment to content producers?

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       7 years ago 

      I agree. When enough people end up with enough stranded value in their browsers, I think they'll eventually pressure Brave into changing that design. The way it is now, it's more like distributing a private rewards pool to publishers than receiving payouts.

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       7 years ago 

      Just found this:

      BAT Mercury will utilize a portion of the 300 million BAT retained in the user growth pool. Users who enable BAT Mercury within the Brave browser will have their wallets automatically funded. At launch, the BAT wallet will be restricted from sending to addresses other than our settlement address; users will not be able to transfer BAT out of their in-browser wallet. The BAT flow in the browser will allow publishers to begin experimenting with reward models to spur patronage of their sites and services.

      A subsequent update will allow users to fund their BAT wallet similarly to how they are able to fund their Bitcoin wallet.

      Another future update will give users the option of going through a “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process in order to gain full control over their BAT wallet, including the ability to transfer BAT out of the wallet.

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       7 years ago 

      Right, so they're going to want to know who you are for you to take it out. Great 😬

      In one way you can't fault that, establishment of identity is still the best fraud deterrent (because we are too lazy to figure it out / it suits the powers that be). But I can't see this helping adoption, and the tech the main thing that will drive the price.

      I'm moving this to a don't buy!

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      [-]
       7 years ago 

      Long term, I think there are two possible counterarguments:

      1. It depends on how much main stream adoption the browser gets on its own merits. When they launched, their PR quickly shifted from paying users to fast/secure browsing. If they deliver that, and the browser gets adopted outside of the crypto space, most mainstream users aren't going to care that much about anonymity for payouts.

      2. BAT and Brave are both open source, under a Mozilla public license, so if there is demand, it's probably possible to fork another browser that uses BAT and their attention protocol, and also enables anonymous withdrawals. Sort-of like multiple portals onto the Steem block chain, this would still boost demand for BAT. On point, this says:

      Given the open-source nature of the project, however, we also envision that as we develop the BAT protocol, third-party developers may come up with new and novel uses for the token.

      Some of these could include:
      Other browsers: One obvious use case for the token is for it to be used inside other browsers. This means that the BAT ecosystem will extend out to anyone using any of the current popular browsers.
      Telegram bot: In messaging apps like Telegram, we foresee the possibility of users being paid in BAT to view one ad.
      WeChat official account: WeChat has become a robust system of bots, payments, and other solutions. We foresee the creation of different WeChat solutions integrating the the token.
      Token and Status: The BAT also has attention-based applicability inside the Ethereum-based messaging/payment platforms such as Coinbase’s new Token app and Status app.

      These apps must be fraud-resistant if they are to participate.

            Although, I"m not clear what "fraud-resistant" means, or how that determination is made.

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       7 years ago 

      The browser is pretty buggy still, they have some basic work to do yet. I'm not so sure but good ideas for positives. I'm still on don't buy for the moment :)

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      [-]
       7 years ago 

      They have worked through a lot of the bugginess, but you're right, the browser still has issues. This update even seems like a step backwards. Pandora stopped working on (at least) 2 of my computers. That's frustrating 'cause I listen to pandora all the time. I suspect that much of the problem is web sites using features that Brave considers to be insecure. Secure browsing without breaking particular web sites has always been a hard problem.

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         7 years ago 

        Thanks for the heads up @remlaps! I just updated as well, but hadn't connected BTC to it yet. Was scratching my head wondering what the update did. Super cool to see this happening. I'm exclusively on Brave now for every day browsing, still have to resort to $hrome for necessary biz tools. #LetsDoThis

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         7 years ago 

        I'm almost exclusively on brave at home, too. I'm curious to see what this does to the BAT price. Coinmarketcap has it up 12% so far.

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         7 years ago 

        I'm curious too. I get the feeling that BAT is supposed to hold in value right, so not great for investment? I say that humbly and understand I could be completely off-base here. Where are the tokens that will pay us - the viewer - for the advertisers right to display that ad (i.e. targeted 100%) to us (because we say it's OK, or we say "we'd like to see ads for Nike shoes")?

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        [-]
         7 years ago 

        Where are the tokens that will pay us - the viewer - for the advertisers right to display that ad (i.e. targeted 100%) to us (because we say it's OK, or we say "we'd like to see ads for Nike shoes")?

        BAT is supposed to do that at a high level. I don't think it's product by product though - just "Allow ads: yes/no" for all ads from their advertising network, which are supposed to be vetted by Brave for privacy and aesthetics.

        I just posted this link in another comment. From that, I gather that they're going to provide seed funding to everyone who activates a wallet, and eventually it will be possible to go through some sort of "know your customer" (KYC) process in order to enable withdrawals from the wallets.

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        [-]
         7 years ago 

        Super cool, thanks for the link. This -> "The BAT flow in the browser will allow publishers to begin experimenting with reward models to spur patronage of their sites and services."

        I'm now looking at the same screen you originally posted before - converting BTC to BAT - going to give this a BAT-shot :)

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         7 years ago 

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           7 years ago 

          Thanks to provide Great New and Useful Information

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