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Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a digital advertising platform by Brendan Eich, creator of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox. Basic Attention Token held an initial coin offering on May 31, 2017 for its eponymous ERC-20 utility token, raising approximately $35M USD at the time in less than 30 seconds. The BAT token is designed to correctly value and price user attention within the platform.
The Basic Attention Token (BAT) platform is comprised of several components, including a self-serve ad platform (similar to Google AdWords) and a suite of attention-measurement algorithms and reward systems. Integration of BAT into an application involves integrating BAT Ads, a system that matches and displays ads to users based on locally stored data. BAT Ads's ad targeting is performed wholly on-device, obviating the need for third-party tracking.
In addition to providing ad revenue for publishers and application developers, BAT will share ad revenue with users.
Basic Attention Token's eponymous Ethereum-based utility token serves as the unit of account within the platform:
- Advertisers purchase advertising space and user attention on the platform using BAT tokens;
- Publishers receive user contributions and advertising revenue in the form of BAT tokens;
- Users will be paid in BAT for any ads they choose to view within the BAT network.
As a cryptocurrency, BAT tokens may be used to redeem rewards and services with participating merchants in the BAT ecosystem, or withdrawn from the platform and exchanged for other currencies.
BAT is a client-side ad technology. All ad matching, targeting and delivery occurs on the client's device. Since ad matching and delivery occurs client-side, no user data collection or tracking is required.
- An advertiser launches an ad campaign on the self-serve ad platform, akin to Google Adwords. Payment is conducted in BAT tokens.
- The ad campaign (its description, format, links, creatives, duration and targeted demographics, etc.) is added to an ad catalog.
- The ad catalog is downloaded into a BAT-enabled application (such as the Brave browser).
- The app (Brave browser) uses local machine learning algorithms to match the user's browsing history and behavior with the contents of the ad catalog.
- Once a match is made, the application delivers the targeted ad to the user.
- If the user engages with the advertisement, they are rewarded a percentage of the gross ad spend for that advertisement.
Basic Attention Token is developed alongside the Brave web browser by Brave Software. Brave will be the first application to integrate the BAT platform, allowing users to opt into ads in exchange for BAT tokens.
Brave Payments in Brave allows users to tip websites and content creators (like YouTubers and Twitch streamers) with BAT tokens, akin to patronage services like Patreon.
Developers will be able to integrate BAT into their applications using a to-be-released BAT source development kit (SDK). Integrating BAT into a mobile application will be akin to integrating Google's AdMob, and will allow developers to monetize their applications by displaying advertisements to users.
What Is Basic Attention Token (BAT)?
To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Basic Attention Token.
This experience is delivered through the Brave Browser, where users can watch privacy-preserving adverts and receive BAT rewards for doing so. On the other hand, advertisers can deliver targeted ads to maximize engagement and cut down losses due to ad fraud and abuse.
The Basic Attention Token itself is the unit of reward in this advertising ecosystem, and is exchanged between advertisers, publishers and users. Advertisers pay for their advertising campaigns in BAT tokens. Out of this budget, a small portion is distributed to advertisers, while 70% is distributed to users — whereas the intermediaries that typically drive up advertising costs are cut out of the equation to improve cost-efficiency.
Basic Attention Token launched in 2017 following one of the fastest sell-out initial coin offerings (ICOs) of all time, with the platform raising a total of $35 million in under a minute. Since then, it has rolled out its attention-based advertising experience to users in most countries through its Brave Rewards program.
As of November 2020, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada had the most active advertising campaigns.
Who Are the Founders of Basic Attention Token?
Basic Attention Token has two founders: Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy — two highly distinguished individuals in the internet browsing software industry.
Brendan Eich is the CEO of Brave Software, Inc — the parent firm behind the Brave browser and Basic Attention Token. Prior to his role at Brave, Eich was the founder and CTO of Mozilla and also invented JavaScript in 1995. He also helped launch one of the world's most popular web browsers in 2004 — Mozilla Firefox.
Likewise, Brian Bondy joins as Brave's and Basic Attention Token’s CTO. Bondy is a heavily experienced engineer with previous experience working as a senior software engineer at Mozilla, software developer at Corel Corporation and software development lead at Khan Academy. Together, Eich and Bondy have a combined 50+ years of software development experience.
In total, the Basic Attention Token website lists 16 team members, many of whom have a development, engineering or research background.
What Makes Basic Attention Token Unique?
The primary use case for the Basic Attention Token is as a payment token for running advertising campaigns through Brave Ads. As of November 2020, advertisers must commit to a minimum ad spend of $2,500 per month to be able to launch their campaign, but a self-serve platform with potentially lower limits is currently in the pipeline.
Currently, this advertising budget must be paid entirely in Basic Attention Tokens, which advertisers can acquire from a variety of third-party exchange platforms. Out of this, Brave takes a small commission, and the rest is distributed to publishers and users.
One of the main distinguishing features about Basic Attention Token and the Brave Browser ecosystem is the capacity to reward (tip) users who are not yet part of the network — this includes both websites and individual Twitter users. These users can then securely register to the platform to collect any tips they have accumulated.
Both Basic Attention Token and Brave Browser have achieved significant user uptake since their launch. As of October 2020, Brave Browser has a total of 20.5 million active monthly users, whereas the Basic Attention Token is now held by a total of more than 368,000 unique wallets.
How Many Basic Attention Token (BAT) Coins Are There in Circulation?
Basic Attention Token has a maximum total supply of 1.5 billion tokens. This cannot be increased without switching to a new token smart contract.
Almost all of this supply is in current circulation. As a result, Basic Attention Token can be considered almost fully diluted.
In its 2017 ICO, a total of 1 billion BAT tokens were sold to investors, whereas the remaining 200 million tokens were locked in a development pool, and 300 million BAT was reserved for the user growth pool (UGP). As of November 2020, both the development pool and UGP pool addresses are nearly empty.
