Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Amid Widespread Privacy Coin Delistings, Bitstamp Considers Zcash Support

Basic Attention Token (BAT) Attempts to Breaking out Above Range High

15.04.2024 - 12:36

Update: 15.04.2024 - 12:36

Following the tension between Iran and Israel over the weekend, there were sharp declines in Bitcoin and altcoins. While BTC dropped to $60,700, altcoins also experienced major losses.

While BTC and the market were slowly recovering after the sharp decline over the weekend, CoinShares published its weekly cryptocurrency report.

Stating that cryptocurrency investment products experienced small outflows of $126 million last week, Coinshares said that the positive price momentum has stopped.

“Cryptocurrency investment products saw small outflows of $126 million last week.

“Investors appear hesitant as positive price momentum has stalled.”

Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) Sales Continue! When looking at crypto funds individually, it was seen that the majority of fund outflows were in Bitcoin.

While BTC experienced an outflow of $110 million, the largest altcoin Ethereum (ETH) also saw an outflow of $28.7 million.

There was an inflow of $1.7 million in the Bitcoin Short fund, which was indexed to the decline of BTC.

When we look at other altcoins, Litecoin (LTC) experienced an inflow of 1.6 million dollars, Polkadot (DOT) 0.8 million dollars, Decentraland (MANA) 4.9 million dollars, and LIDO 1.8 million dollars; Solana (SOL) experienced a $3.6 million outflow.

“Bitcoin saw outflows of $110 million but maintained positive inflows of $555 million since the beginning of the month. Short-bitcoin broke a 3-week outflow streak with small inflows of $1.7 million, likely taking advantage of recent price weakness.

Ethereum was the altcoin that suffered the most relative damage last week, with an outflow of $29 million, marking its 5th consecutive weekly outflow.

Aside from Solana seeing $3.6 million in outflows last week, altcoins had another good week. More esoteric names like Decentraland, Basic Attention Token, and LIDO saw inflows of $4.9 million, $2.9 million, and $1.8 million, respectively.”

When looking at regional fund inflows and outflows, it was seen that the USA ranked first with an outflow of 145 million dollars.

After the USA, Canada ranked second with 6 million dollars.

Against these outflows, Germany lost 28.6 million dollars; Brazil experienced an inflow of 3 million dollars.

*This is not investment advice.

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The team behind the Midnight Network has launched the claim portal for the Glacier Drop, opening up the first phase of the NIGHT token distribution. 

Following the launch, 33.6 million eligible addresses across eight major blockchains can now claim their free NIGHT tokens on the portal. The supported blockchains include XRP Ledger, Cardano, Solana, Bitcoin, BNB, Ethereum, Basic Attention Token, and Avalanche. 

Notably, the Glacier Drop portal went live just a day after Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson teased its launch in a cryptic tweet. It was captioned “tomorrow kids” and was accompanied by a GIF, which reads “So it begins.” 

Expectedly, the post elicited several reactions, with users suggesting that the team was preparing to launch the Glacier Drop claim portal. Interestingly, the portal has gone live, enabling eligible users to claim their NIGHT tokens. 

BREAKING: Midnight has opened the claim portal for the Glacier Drop 🔥

A free $NIGHT token distribution is now live for 33.6 million eligible addresses across $ADA, $BTC, $ETH, $XRP, $SOL, $BAT, $BNB, and $AVAX.

Cardano $ADA holders are eligible for the largest share. pic.twitter.com/itxmHygKpG

— Cardanians (CRDN) (@Cardanians_io) August 5, 2025

How to Claim NIGHT  Users can claim their tokens in four steps. The first step involves visiting the claim portal and connecting the “origin address.” It is worth noting that the origin address is the same as the one that qualified for the airdrop. 

Upon connecting this address, users can provide a destination address to receive the free NIGHT allocations. To complete the claim, users must accept the terms and conditions and also sign the transactions. 

Phases of NIGHT Airdrop  The Glacier Drop, which is the first phase of the claim, will last 60 days. Once this phase ends, the Scavenger Mine–the second phase–will commence immediately for the next 30 days. 

During this phase, users are required to complete computational tasks to earn a share of unclaimed tokens. Eligible users who missed the Glacier Drop will be presented with another opportunity to claim their tokens in a subsequent phase dubbed Lost-and-Found. Any unclaimed tokens after this event will be allocated to the Midnight treasury. 

ADA Holders Remain Biggest Gainers  Although the Glacier Drop supports addresses from major blockchains, Cardano users will receive the lion’s share. As previously reported, 50% of NIGHT’s token supply, equivalent to 12 billion tokens, is reserved for ADA holders. 20% of the supply, translating to 4.8 billion tokens, will be allocated to eligible users on the Bitcoin network. 

The remaining 30% supply, or 7.2 billion NIGHT, will be split among Avalanche, XRPL, Solana, Basic Attention Token, BNB, and Ethereum users. 

According to sources, Over 33 million addresses are eligible for claims:

ADA: 1,072,307

BTC: 17,562,278

XRP: 2,213,942

ETH: 7,862,092

SOL: 3,465,122

BNB: 1,213,677

AVAX: 227,793

BAT: 24,605

Users’ individual holdings of eligible tokens at the time of the snapshot will determine the amount of tokens they will receive. 

DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.

3 Made in USA Coins to Watch After the Weekend Crypto Crash

Analyst: Micron’s financial report indicates short-term fluctuations can be ignored as long as earnings prospects underpin its high valuation.

Senior Market Analyst Daniela Hathorn stated, "As Micron Technology's earnings report once again confirms that the AI investment cycle remains solid, the U.S. stock market has recouped some of its losses. This has boosted market sentiment across the entire semiconductor sector—after high-growth individual stocks underperformed earlier—indicating that as long as profit prospects continue to support high valuations, investors are still willing to overlook short-term fluctuations."

5 minutes ago

Circle partners with Nomura Securities to enter the Japanese yen foreign exchange settlement service market.

Stablecoin issuer Circle plans to collaborate with Nomura Securities to launch instant foreign currency settlement for Japanese corporate clients as early as 2027. The initiative will enable large cross-border transactions to be completed immediately, aiming to boost cross-border investment and trade. This will mark the first entry of a major stablecoin issuer into Japan’s corporate transaction market, allowing companies to convert yen into US dollar-denominated stablecoins for investment and instant transfers.

5 minutes ago

Institutions' Preview: Overview of US May Core PCE Price Index Monthly Rate

The US May core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index monthly rate will be released tonight at 20:30 (UTC+8). Below are the forecasts from multiple institutions: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation: 0.2%; Royal Bank of Canada: 0.2%; JPMorgan Chase: 0.3%; Goldman Sachs Group: 0.3%; Bank of Montreal: 0.3%; Moody's Corporation: 0.3%; Standard Chartered: 0.3%; UniCredit: 0.3%; ING Group: 0.3%; HSBC Holdings: 0.3%; BNP Paribas: 0.4%; Wells Fargo: 0.4%; Capital Economics: 0.4%; Citigroup: 0.4%; Deutsche Bank: 0.4%; Nomura Securities: 0.4%; Pantheon Macroeconomics: 0.4%; Société Générale: 0.4%; Scotiabank: 0.4%; Morgan Stanley: 0.4%

5 minutes ago

DA Davidson Raises Micron’s Price Target to $2,000, Retains Buy Rating

U.S. investment bank DA Davidson released a research note stating that Micron Technology has entered a new phase with one of the best performance visibility in the semiconductor industry, a stark contrast to its past standing in the sector. Driven by another quarter of results that handily exceeded expectations and positive forward guidance, Micron’s stock price surged sharply. These signals indicate that the current memory chip boom cycle is far from over. While the company is ramping up capacity investments (with capital expenditure (CAPEX) projected to hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which will bring additional supply), management expects the memory market to remain tight on supply and demand at least through 2027. Against this backdrop, DA Davidson reiterated its "Buy" rating on Micron and raised its price target from $1,500 to $2,000, equivalent to a 20x price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio based on the company’s 2026 calendar year expected earnings per share (EPS).

5 minutes ago

Morgan Stanley raises Micron's price target to $1,200, maintains 'Overweight' rating.

Morgan Stanley released a report raising Micron Technology (MU.O)’s price target from $1,050 to $1,200, while maintaining an "Overweight" rating. The investment bank lifted its fiscal 2027 earnings per share (EPS) forecast for the chipmaker by roughly 40% to $168, and upgraded its free cash flow (FCF) projection from $104 billion to $140 billion. Aligning with Micron’s management, the bank holds that AI will push DRAM demand to consistently outpace supply significantly after 2027. Micron’s last fiscal quarter results matched this trend, with both its quarterly performance and outlook showing notable upside potential.

5 minutes ago

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As promised, the leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has dramatically increased the number of coins supported on its platform. The company just added Stellar (XLM), a few weeks after the long-rumored debut of XRP.

So which coins will land the coveted Coinbase listing next?

Back in December, Coinbase revealed it’s taking a hard look at 31 additional cryptocurrencies. The platform now supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, 0x, Basic Attention Token and USD Coin.

That leaves 28 coins on Coinbase’s list of prospects.

• Cardano
• Aeternity
• Aragon
• Bread Wallet
• Civic
• Dai
• District0x
• Enjin Coin
• EOS
• Golem
• IOST
• KIN
• Kyber Network
• ChainLink
• Loom Network
• Loopring
• Decentraland
• Mainframe
• Maker
• NEO
• OmiseGo
• Po.et
• QuarkChain
• Augur
• Request Network
• Status
• Storj
• Tezos

Coinbase Pro, the company’s professional trading platform, already supports a handful of the coins on the list above: Civic, Dai, District0x, Golem, Loom, Decentraland and Zcash.

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The crypto market is constantly in flux: brand-new cryptocurrencies regularly appear at the top of the charts, while older coins slowly fade away. While Bitcoin has been a consistent leader, the market is littered with former runners-up.

All it takes is a trip through the historical rankings to see just how transient cryptocurrencies can be. Here’s the top ten cryptocurrencies on August 25th, 2013: just about six years ago.

Via CoinMarketCap Some of these early cryptocurrencies are far more important than they seem, and today’s most popular coins owe a lot to their ancestors. Here’s a few old projects that pioneered some of today’s most popular crypto trends. We’ll start at the very beginning with the digital currencies (and proposed currencies) that preceded Bitcoin.

DigiCash And More: The BitGold To Bitcoin’s Gold Bitcoin was released in 2008, but it wasn’t the first digital currency. One of Bitcoin’s most notable precursors is David Chaum’s DigiCash, which was active from 1990 to 1998. DigiCash had cryptographic elements similar to those of Bitcoin, but it lacked Bitcoin’s defining features. Unlike Bitcoin, DigiCash didn’t use a blockchain, and it didn’t rely on mining (aka proof-of-work).

Proof-of-work grew fast, though: in the years leading up to Bitcoin’s 2008 launch, several mining-based digital currencies were suggested. Wei Dai proposed bMoney in 1998, and Nick Szabo proposed BitGold in 2005. Neither of these proposals came to fruition. However, Hashcash, a proof-of-work system dating back to 1997, was eventually used in Bitcoin’s mining scheme.

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Bitcoin’s blockchain also has a number of important ancestors. In 1991, Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta developed an early distributed ledger. It was intended as a timestamping tool, and it took the form of hashes printed in the New York Times. Prior to this, Ralph Merkle invented hash trees, a key part of every blockchain.

Peercoin: An Early Proof-of-Stake Coin In 2012, Sunny King and Scott Nadal created Peercoin, the first cryptocurrency with a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Peercoin partially relies on mining to create tokens, just like Bitcoin does, but it also distributes tokens to coinholders through its staking model. This provides extra security: Peercoin’s reliance on staking reduced the risk of mining centralization and 51% attacks.

Naturally, Peercoin’s early staking model was extremely basic, and it doesn’t solve the nothing-at-stake problem. In other words, validators have no reason not to behave maliciously.

Newer coins try to solve this problem: NEO and EOS allow stakeholders to vote for just a few trusted validators, for example. Ethereum, meanwhile, plans to keep validators in line with complex incentives and penalties as it transitions towards proof-of-stake.

Colored Coins: Tokenization Before Ethereum Long before Vitalik Buterin dreamed up the word “Ethereum,” simple tokens already existed on Bitcoin. The most elemental forms were “colored coins,” which allow users to represent assets as custom tokens.

Early implementations for Bitcoin-based colored coins began to appear in 2012. More popular implementations appeared later, including EPOBC, Open Assets and Coinprism. The Omni Layer also provides a basis for custom Bitcoin tokens, but it isn’t always considered a colored coin system.

In any case, Bitcoin’s colored coins were quickly overshadowed by Ethereum. Since 2015, over 200,000 tokens have been created on Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. Ethereum also offers token standards for special assets, such as security tokens and cryptocollectibles. Countless other blockchains, such as Binance Chain, are also aiming to provide similar tokenization features.

Devcoin: Crypto Rewards Before BAT and Steemit Devcoin was created in 2011 as a reward token for developers, artists, and content creators. Although Devcoin is produced through mining, like Bitcoin, it also offers built-in features that facilitate payments to creators. In particular, Devcoin coordinates payments through “receiver files,” which are hosted by creators who release their work under free licenses.

Devcoin is no longer popular, but some of its features can be found in other crypto reward projects. Brave, for example, requires websites to host special files in order to receive Basic Attention Token payouts. Meanwhile, Coil, which relies on XRP and Interledger, requires content creators to edit their web page’s metadata. Steemit is also a popular crypto-based reward platform.

Are Classic Coins Still Relevant? Some of these projects are still active – but they’re not very prominent. In January 2014, there were just 67 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap. Peercoin ranked #4, Omni was at #5, and Devcoin was at #19. But now, there are thousands of coins, and competition is brutal: Peercoin currently ranks at #245, Omni is at #750, and Devcoin doesn’t even get a number.

It’s possible that this pattern will repeat itself—perhaps in five years, people will forget about many of today’s most popular cryptocurrencies. But for all the talk about Bitcoin killers and Ethereum killers, today’s market leaders don’t seem to be under threat. Only time will tell whether the top coins can maintain their lead.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Mike Dalton. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Posted: November 20, 2019

Yesterday, MakerDAO rolled out Multi-Collateral DAI [MCD] on its platform. While the platform continues its support for Ethereum-based collateral, support for Brave’s Basic Attention Token [BAT] was also added to the platform. Therefore, MCD would be supporting ETH as well as BAT tokens, for the time being. The platform is also eyeing Augur [REP], Golem [GNT], 0x [ZRX], DigixDAO [DGD], and OmiseGo [OMG] as potential assets on the platform.

The latest addition to the Maker platform requires users to migrate from Single Collateral Dai [SAI] to Multi-Collateral Dai. MakerDAO’s Mariano Conti went on to update the community about DAI’s progress and tweeted,

“Just over 12 hours in, some numbers for @MakerDAO Dai: – 2.4 million Dai – 88% ETH, 11% BAT, 1% Sai – 689 Vaults opened – 470k Dai in DSR – 534 Dai generated in Stability Fees – 6 liquidations already!”

At the time of writing, however, the figures had gone way beyond the same. According to DAI Stats, there were a total of 6,403,697.126 DAI in total. Further, about 6,118,083.014 DAI were acquired from ETH, followed by 269,552.625 DAI from BAT. 335.306 DAI were also obtained from SAI. The ETH stability fee and BAT stability were at 4.00 percent. However, the stability fee of SAI was at 0.00 percent.

Additionally, Dai Savings Rate [DSR] was another addition to the platform. This feature will allow users to lock their DAI into Maker’s DSR contract, while gaining a variable interest rate in DAI. At the time of writing, the DAI Savings Rate was at 2.00 percent, while the DAI in DSR was 542,872.369.

The relabeling of the term. ‘Collateralized Debt Position’ [CDP] to ‘Vault’ is another upgrade on the platform. There were a total of 768 vaults opened, during press time.

However, the total number of DAI locked in DeFi was fairly low. After recording an all-time high of 30.022 million in terms of DAI locked in DeFi, on 7 November, things went downhill. The total DAI locked in DeFi, as of today, was 16.235 million.

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The Brave browser and its native Basic Attention Token (BAT) is one of the most revolutionary concepts in online digital advertising to date.

This privacy enhanced browser is increasingly popular and people are downloading it in their droves. They are also using the in browser rewards to earn BAT in exchange for their attention thereby further driving demand for the tokens and browser.

However, is it really worth all of the hype?

In this Basic Attention Token review, I will attempt to answer just that. I will also take a look at the Brave ecosystem and the long term use cases for the BAT token.

What is Basic Attention Token?The Basic Attention Token is the native token that is used in the Brave ecosystem.

Brave offers a privacy-focused browser that shields users away from 3rd party ads and trackers. On this browser publishers, advertisers and users are all incentivized to help each party generate the most value.

The token and Brave project is quite an interesting one as it is trying to solve some fundamental problems that exist today with digital advertising.

For example, consumers are growing ever more conscious of how their data is being misused by social media companies like Facebook. This is evidenced by the growing demand for ad-blocking software, which now operates on over 600 million mobile devices and desktops globally.

The industry seems no longer capable of aligning incentives between advertisers, publishers and users. The advertising ecosystem has become rife with data exploitation (users personal data being exploited, as well as the high costs of data from downloading irrelevant and impersonal ads) and inaccurate reporting of user engagement.

Demand for BAT, an ERC20 token, will be driven by the following factors:

Advertisers pay Publishers in BATs to have their ads viewed by usersUsers earn BATs when they view ads. User attention is monitored on their devices and in the Brave browser using machine-learning technology (private data always remains contained within the devices being used).Advertisers get better ROI as a result of a more accurate and incentive based systemHow is Attention Measured?Brave takes the unique approach of measuring attention at the browser level, meaning it keeps track of user engagement within an active tab in real time, showcasing relevant ads based on time spent scrolling over specific content in the tab.

The browser calculates an ‘attention score’ based on whether a page is viewed for a minimum of 25 seconds, and the total amount of time that is spent on that page. Other pieces of data (such as type of content being viewed) are included and sent to the Brave ledger system, which records and sends payments to the publisher and user based on the final attention score.

This process enables BAT to more effectively measure user attention and accurately reward publishers and users.

The company also boasts its use of Machine learning to provide a superior process for tracking user activity in order to share more relevant ads.

Today, digital ad services use Cookies and other 3rd party trackers, which often fail by serving ads for products that users have already bought.

According to the New York Times, $23 of the average users monthly phone bill goes towards paying for the bandwidth spent on ads and trackers, resulting in 21% less battery life.

Data from the following publishers shows how the cost of downloading ads + tracking is a large portion of the cost of content:

Image Source: brave.com

As Brave Co-founder Brendan Eich describes it, “we’re paying to be bothered by ads”. The Brave browser significantly reduces bandwidth by blocking irrelevant ads while serving only those that fit the users interests based on attention monitoring within their device.

BAT also aims to displace advertising networks (or 'ad exchanges’). These middlemen help broker deals between publishers seeking ads, and advertisers seeking publishing space.

Image Source: liesdamnedlies.com

However through this process, what is gained in efficiency is lost in the quality of ads shown to relevant users.

The more advertising networks exist to broker deals between publishers and advertisers in the system, the further advertisers and publishers are separated from each other, which results in more impersonal ads being shown to the wrong people purely for the sake of these middlemen exchanges earning more money.

Image Source: liesdamnedlies.com

BAT completely decentralizes these ad networks, enabling publishers and advertisers to deal with each other directly through the BRAVE browsers attention monitoring technology, which increases the quality of ads shown while maintaining efficiency.

Image Source: BAT Whitepaper

BAT, like most other tokens, can be applied as a utility in the Brave browser platform, or traded for Bitcoin and other coins on public exchanges like Binance.

Brave has plans to provide multiple use cases for users holding BAT tokens. For example, Publishers will be able to offer premium content for those who pay using BAT. Users will also be rewarded with tokens for promoting the publishers content themselves.

Brave Browser V1.0 ReleasedThe Brave browser spent a long time in its beta period, but the first Brave 1.0 production version was finally released on November 13, 2019. This is a turning point for the internet, because this Brave browser is a speed demon, and heavily focused on the privacy of its users. With a cavalier approach to ad-blocking and the promise of BAT payouts, the Brave browser is now on the cusp of an explosion.

With more than 8 million global users already, the Brave 1.0 browser promises users speed, privacy, and improved battery life for their mobile devices.

There are two very clear reasons why Brave is now the leading browser on the market, and neither one has to do with the potential for earning BAT by using the browser.

Here’s what really makes Brave a special browser.

No Tradeoff between Speed & SecurityBrave is by far the fastest browser available for any operating system, whether used on a mobile device or a desktop machine. The memory usage of the browser is exceptionally low, and websites load far faster as well. Brave claims loading times are 3-6x faster than other browsers, and I can tell it’s true.

The foundation of Brave’s speed comes from the suite of built-in privacy and security features. You’ve all probably experienced websites loaded with advertisements, trackers, pop-ups, and banners that slow your device to a crawl as it tries to wade through the mountains of extraneous code. And while you can add plugins that block advertisements and trackers on Chrome and Firefox, the Brave browser runs these features by default.

Brave Compared to Chrome for Loading Speeds. Image via Brave

One huge privacy concern recently has been the use of a method known as “fingerprinting” to track user activity all across the internet, which allows advertisers to build a unique and identifiable profile for any tracked user without loading cookies on the computer.

Other browsers have begun to fight back against fingerprinting, and Brave is leading the charge. Besides blocking fingerprinting, the Brave Shield feature also blocks a huge number of invasive advertisements and tracking cookies.

Brave has also sidestepped one common problem found in modern browsers. They can often interfere so greatly with a website to block elements that users are unable to access the content they came to the website for in the first place.

That either means the user has to go elsewhere to find information, or they need to go through the time-consuming and irritating process of disabling security plugins one by one until they can figure out which one is causing the browsing problem.

Choosing which ads to block on the Brave Browser

The Brave privacy suite eliminates the need to go through this painful process and makes it faster and far less annoying to have a secure browsing experience. One click on the Brave icon and users are presented with a small menu that has simplified toggles to turn on and off the extensive security features in the browser settings.

Because the Brave browser is built on the Chromium engine that powers Google Chrome it’s possible to increase privacy even further by adding your own choice of extensions in the same way you would when using the Chrome browser. But just because Brave is built with the Chromium engine it doesn’t mean you’re giving up your data to Google.

Brave has stripped the Google-specific code from its version of the Chromium engine, thus not just blocking outside data from getting in, but also blocking data that’s already inside from getting out. The bottom line is you can use Brave without worrying that it’s sharing all your browsing history with Google.

Brave & BAT PowerAnd here is the feature that attempts to blend user and advertiser needs with privacy concerns and the revenue generated by advertising on websites all across the internet. That feature is Brave Rewards, which users can opt into if they want to support websites with revenue, but still, maintain their privacy.

When opted into Brave Rewards the Brave browser will swap ads on a website with ads of its own. The major difference is the Brave ads don’t track you, and when users view or engage with the ads they get rewarded with BAT tokens.

Brave will keep 30% of the ad revenue spent by advertisers while passing the other 70% on to the Brave users. Users can also utilize the BAT added to their accounts to tip users on a variety of social media and other sites, or by contributing to their favorite websites. For example, Wikipedia is a Brave publisher and can be supported with BAT donations.

Value flow of the BAT Tokens in Ecosystem. Image via BAT whitepaper.

Brave claims the average user can earn roughly $5 per month, with this figure varying based on the region they live in and other factors.

Prior to the release of Brave v1.0 users were unable to withdraw any of the BAT they made using the browser. However it is now possible to withdraw through the cryptocurrency exchange Uphold, and Brave says by next year users will be able to redeem BAT for product discounts, gift cards, and subscriptions, plus more.

Brave has had push-back from advertisers since its inception due to issues with having their content covered. However, when looked at through the eyes of the user trying to avoid the increasing surveillance of corporations, the BAT model is a good one. And considering there are now thousands of advertisers using Brave, even though some are just testing at this point, it seems Brave is here to stay.

The one thing needed now is more users. While 8 million is a good start, it’s a long way from the 250 million users of the Mozilla Firefox browser or the more than 1 billion Google Chrome users.

History and TeamBrendan Eich founded Brave Software in 2017. As the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Firefox, he’s certainly proven capable of developing large scale and disruptive software when it counts.

In the same year it was founded, the BAT token raised an impressive $35million in just under 30 seconds during their ICO.

Some of the Brave Team Members. Image via Brave.

They have since secured early partners and brought on top talent developers and executives. Other key members of the team include:

Brian Bondy – Lead Developer, co-founded Brave. Previously: Khan Academy, Mozilla, and Evernote.Yan Zhu – Chief Information Security Officer.Holli Bohren – Chief Financial Officer.BAT is headquartered in San Francisco, with an additional office in London. As of December 2019, their workforce has grown to over 100 employees.

CompetitionBrave has a few competitors in the Blockchain space disrupting digital advertising.

Papyrus and Adshares both offer similar Blockchain based advertising ecosystems. The main difference is that they focus primarily on publishers and advertisers, leaving users out of the equation.

Braves toughest challenge however will come from the fierce competition it faces in the web and mobile browser space.

Image Source: brave.com

As of March 2018, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet explorer and Firefox collectively made up about 90% of the browser market. Ad blocking capabilities and even an incentive based token ecosystem are features that any of these browsers could replicate if they choose to.

Brave will have to offer much more in order to be considered a viable alternative for everyday users.

BAT Price PerformanceThe BAT token launched in June 2017 at a price of $0.17. A month later on July 16, 2017 the token hit an all-time low of $0.066209.

It was fortunate timing though as it came just before the great rally in cryptocurrencies at the end of 2017, and BAT hit its all-time high of $0.980702 on January 9, 2018. Of course, from there it dropped throughout 2018 as the entire cryptocurrency space suffered a deep bear market.

2019 saw a recovery early in the year, with BAT reaching $0.44391 by April 21, 2019. Of course, it dropped off those levels but has been holding up fairly well in 2019 compared with many other altcoins.

BAT Price Performance. Image via CMC.

As of early December 2019, it remains above its launch price and is trading at $0.186301 on December 4, 2019. A week early the BAT token had reached $0.277868 as it rallied following the release of the first production Brave browser.

The chart indicates that BATs price (like most other coins) is moving in accordance with the general wave of market sentiment around crypto-currencies. Like most blockchain projects, I believe it will take some time before the technology is validated enough for the token to start defining its own price trends in the crypto-currency market.

BAT Markets & StorageWhen it comes to the markets for BAT, it is quite a popular token and is listed on a number of exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, Bittrex, Huobi etc. However, over 50% of the volume is currently taking place on two of the top exchanges.

This is not one of our preferred exchanges and the fact that the bulk of the trading is taking place here is a potential problem for open market liquidity. It means that these exchanges could have an outsized impact on the market for BAT.

Register at Binance and Buy BAT Tokens

Having said that, the individual liquidity on the order books of exchanges like Binance are pretty deep and liquid. This means that you can execute your orders with relatively little slippage (even for those large block orders).

Once you have your Bat, you’ll need a place to store them safely. The Brave browser uses Uphold to keep your tokens as you earn them for viewing ads, so that’s always an option.

Bat is also an ERC-20 token, so if you already have a wallet that supports this type of token, you can use that. If you don’t, there are plenty to choose from. These include wallets such as MetaMask, MyEtherWallet and hardware wallets such a Trezor / Ledger.

Pros & ConsBased on this review there are a number of opportunities and challenges that I have identified with the Brave browser. These are just my opinion and I encourage you to do your own research.

First, lets take a look at some of the opportunities we have with Brave & BAT:

In true Blockchain fashion, BAT aims to displace the middlemen ad exchanges responsible for polluting the ad experience by creating an incentive based decentralized network where publishers, advertisers and users can more effectively feed off of each other’s needsThe team is highly experienced and has proven to be successful in creating disruptive technologiesBraves browser provides much faster speeds as a result of its ad blocking featuresBraves privacy browser is already up and working with 10 million monthly usersThe browser monitors user attention in real time, while maintaining anonymity and privacy for usersThe public is increasingly becoming more aware of how ads are negatively impacting their experience. This is shown by the rise in ad blocking software globally (600m devices). At the same time, traditional publishers have lost approximately 66% of their ad revenue over the past decadeBrave Daily User Growth. Image via Brave.

However, there are quite a few disadvantages and challenges that the browser could face coming forward. These include some of the following:

BAT is relying on people adopting the Brave browser, which could be trouble because of strong competition from Google Chrome, Safari and Brendan’s former company – Firefox. There have been discussions around of Brave developing a Chrome extension to expose their solution to more users, but no release date has been confirmed.Advertisers may still face challenges with converting users into paying customers. It seems like the profile of a Brave browser user is someone who:Already uses or is interested in using an ad blockerWants a faster browsing experienceWants to get paid for viewing adsWants to see more relevant adsWants to save money on mobile dataAt this time it’s not so clear which of the 5 traits most accurately describe a Brave user. One would have to assume that having access to an ad blocker would be most important.

However in order for Brave to provide advertisers with a higher ROI, they need to attract users who are willing to pay for products they discover through ads, even though they may only be using the service to earn tokens by viewing these ads.

Generally, people who are interested in viewing ads for money usually aren’t in a position to pay for the products being advertised to them, and in the worst case, may seek to manipulate their views in order to earn more tokens.

This could be a concern for advertisers hoping to attract real customers and increase sales by using Brave.

ConclusionBrave browser faces stiff competition from the likes of Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and others. Although they’re currently showing impressive growth with 8 million monthly users, the browser is going to need to form large strategic partnerships that allow for BAT to become integrated into the browsing experience of everyday users across the web.

At the same time, advertisers are going to need assurance that the incentive-based model being proposed will actually help them convert their ad dollars into product sales, and not just guarantee more ad views.

Although Adblockers and a token-based ecosystem are great value propositions, I believe what will ultimately bring Brave and its Basic attention token to mass adoption is the cost savings from reduced data spent on ad downloads and trackers.

The appeal of a browser that can help people cut down 20% of their monthly phone bill is widespread and could be utilized to form partnerships with mobile data providers like Verizon and AT&T.

Ad downloads and trackers currently cost users $23 a month in mobile data. Braves browser cuts down on these costs significantly through its ad blocking technology.

Based on this knowledge, Brave could partner with AT&T, Verizon, and other mobile data providers to reward customers with a discount on unlimited data plans when they adopt the Brave browser on their mobile phone.

From AT&T and Verizon’s perspective, if customers commit to using a low bandwidth browser, data providers can offer them unlimited data at a lower cost to their business.

AT&T and Verizon could benefit from people paying a slightly lower price for their unlimited data plan ($10 or $15 discount for example) because those same consumers might be saving mobile providers $20 or $30 per account by using the Brave browser to cut down their average monthly data usage by 0.5GB.

Ultimately, the value of Braves browser to AT&T and Verizon would be to help them reduce the cost of serving their customers with unlimited data. Such a partnership could allow Brave and BAT access to several million more users.

There’s currently no mention of a mobile data provider partnership occurring, but as a consumer, I’d definitely be excited about the possibility of Verizon charging me $15 less to use their unlimited data plan by simply switching browsers and purchasing BAT.

It’s too early to tell, but I wouldn’t put it past Brendan and his team to explore discounted mobile data plans as the ideal incentive to encourage more mainstream adoption and increased voluntary ad views on the Brave Browser.

Disclaimer: These are writer opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.

These 21 cryptocurrencies are still candidates to be listed on Coinbase Pro

Robinhood launches trading of three new tokens: BAT, FLR, and STRK.

PANews reported on June 4 that Robinhood has added support for trading three new tokens: Basic Attention Token (BAT), Flare (FLR), and Starknet (STRK), covering users in compliant regions including New York State.

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