Introduction to Basic Attention Token (BAT)

Basic Attention Token is an advertising platform on Ethereum, launched in May 2017, having the same creator as JavaScript, also a co-founder of the browser Firefox. Apart from being this digital ad exchange, BAT also has a dashboard for analytics and a reward system, among other features.

This is the way BAT wants to change the digital advertising world. When we are online, there are ads everywhere, but the ruling attitude for this is, ad blockers. All this negativity around digital ads is also hurting the industry where Google and Facebook have a monopoly (73% of this market in the US), and there are huge frauds caused by bots.

BAT wants to leave behind the fraud, trackers and intermediaries existing today, the perception of ads as spam. When 50% of our mobile data is spent on ads and trackers, when our privacy is violated in this process, and our battery life is consumed, and we are in risk because of malware in those ads, there’s certainly a strong use case for BAT to appear.

With BAT we will still have the possibility to block ads, but we can also pay to view certain ads, or get paid in BAT tokens for viewing other ads. BAT aims to distribute its tokens between users, advertisers and publishers as payment for advertising services.

The platform where this happens is, for now, the already operational and privacy focused Brave browser, as it’s not just yet available on Firefox, Chrome or any other. This native and open-source browser blocks malicious ads and trackers, while rewards fairly publishers according to the user attention.

The rewards are measured by a ledger system for accuracy, so the browser ends up knowing where users spend their time, creating a much needed transparent service, blockchain efficient. Note also, that while the user attention is being monitored, this is done in an anonymous way.

The good part is that users get paid for this, and publishers get their revenue without the middlemen involved. The first big challenge for BAT to succeed is precisely to get over these middlemen existing in the industry, but using the blockchain technology is certainly a strong ally to face this challenge.

There is another challenge, the current the lack of development for most browser plugins, so major development is ahead of the BAT team in the next months and years, not just in terms of browser adjustment, but also anti-fraud measures and analytics for the publishers.

This is a brief introduction to BAT, but if you want to know more about the coin, what people are saying about it, technical details, jump right in any of the links we present below. They are well worth reading before investing!