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?
I've just downloaded it and it looks great. I'm a little confused as to how you'll get tokens from watching ads. I understand the concept but there is no wallet address etc so how do you actually earn?
Ive had a look, downloaded and played with it. Its sooooo fast. I am loving the browser. It looks like the being paid to allow ads functionality inst live yet. Unless I missed something. This may become my new default browser though!
I don't think the ad thing is fully operational yet. Glad to hear you are enjoying the browser :-)
The browser is great. Looks good and really fast (noticeably faster than other browsers). It seems to struggle with you tube but otherwise it’s fine.
I’m really looking forward to the time when it’s fully operational and we are earning from out browsing!
Yea! Same here. It's going to be a bright future w/ Brave.
Just running into this now, wish I had earlier, I've been in doubt regarding my BAT holdings. I know btc is going haywire and not to be alarmed - volatility is a given, but your article REALLY bolsters my decision to buy BAT! The team looks solid as well and I should probably switch to the Brave browser.
Glad to hear I could help.
This sounds fantastic! Let's get rid of the middle men!
OH my goodness that gif is funny!!!
Nice review, i will definitely take a look tomorrow when i get up. Oh damn it's in three hours.... Goodnight :)
Three hours! get some sleep my dude. the article can wait.
Doing my best, but there is so little time for everything. I'm sure you know it :)
I'll give the Brave browser a try, all your pieces are gonna be excellent teaching points for the blockchain club I'm starting with friends on my campus.
Cool. Brave is a great way to start learning about blockchain.
I had a similar reaction to Brave. 'What? How is this sooo fast? And nice-looking? I want to use it!' It just excites.
I'm still sticking with Firefox, but Brave is lurking round the corner.
What makes you stick with FireFox?
Firefox is also privacy and security centric these days and you can sync between devices very effectively - and fast too. I use both Firefox and Brave (and Vivaldi sometimes), but not Chrome if I can help it.
Ah cool I haven't used Firefox in a while... last I used it was many years ago when it was having a lot of problems.
The same people who built Firefox also built Brave, so it's a win/win in my book.
Excellent. Thanks for shedding light on these. Cryptocurrency is exploding, making it hard to keep up with these new projects.
You are welcome.
good story mrn
its not a story
apa jugak kloe