Basic Attention Token, BAT

The Brave startup and Basic Attention Token have been created to change an approach to web promotion, increase the efficiency of digital advertising, and reduce advertising fraud using cryptography and open-source code. Brave is a Chromium-based browser that blocks trackers and unsolicited advertising, replacing it with the content sponsored to be displayed to registered users. The Basic Attention Token is a decentralized advertising system based on the Ethereum blockchain and a native token. Together they are integrated using the Brave Rewards programme, which includes such functions as Brave Ads, Tipping, and Auto-Contribute.

Brave startup history

Establishment: May 2015, San Francisco, CA (USA).
Founders: software architect Brendan Eich and software engineer Brian Bondy.
Previous experience: Mr Eich is a creator of JavaScript (1995), he worked as a chief architect at Netscape (1995–2003), and then as a chief architect, CTO, and CEO at Mozilla Corporation (2003–2014). Mr Bondy worked as a software engineer at Anchor Lamina (1999–2001) and Mozilla Corporation (2011–2014), a software developer at Corel Corporation (2001–2002) and Khan Academy (2014–2015), and a technical director at KineticD (2010–2011). He also co-established and managed VisionWorks Solutions (2004–2010).

Assistant: Scott Locklin — author of the Token Economics paper.
Advisers: Greg Badros, Jon Bond, Ankur Nandwani, Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn.

Company: Brave Software, Inc.; 2015, San Francisco (USA).
Executives: Brendan Eich is CEO, Brian Bondy is CTO.

Browser announcement: January 2016.
Announcement of the advertising system and the token: March 2017.
V.1.0 public launch: November 2019.

Investment in the startup

1. November 2015: $2.5 million raised in a seed round.
2. August 2016: $4.5 million raised in seed investment from Founders Fund.
3. May 2017: $36 million raised during the token sale.

Basic Attention Token attributes

The following three types of companies/people interact with the advertising system: advertisers, publishers, and browser users. Each of them uses the Basic Attention Token as a payment unit for attention. It could be spent, earned, and gained.

Advertisers buy BAT tokens to pay publishers when they release advertising campaigns via Brave Ads. Thus, they attract the attention of their target audience and reduce excessive impressions and fake views. They have access both to self-service and managed account services from Brave.

Publishers and content creators earn BAT tokens for placing ad slots. This way they get rid of third-party intermediaries, such as advertising agents, although Brave does charge a small commission for paid ads and partly uses it to stimulate users. They can also get contributions and donations from readers or reward them for downloading apps.

Browser users get BAT tokens as a reward for attention to ads or their help to publishers. For viewing ads as system notifications, they get 70% of the advertisement’s revenue, and for viewing advertisements in publishers’ blocks — 15%. They can also spend tokens to get access to premium content, donations to publishers, and to block advertising entirely. Before 2020, new users had received few BATs just for being a part of the system. However, the user growth pool is currently depleted.

BAT is a utility token of the ERC-20 standard. However, taking into account the experience and capabilities of the executives, the team can create its own blockchain and migrate there, so in the future, BAT can become a coin.

Basic Attention Token crowdsale and BAT distribution

Crowdsale of the Basic Attention Token took place on 31 May 2017. It is considered a token sale and not an ICO because developers haven’t planned to create their own blockchain with coins. The team issued 1.5 billion BAT, which is a set issuance limit. The amount was distributed the following way:

Investors bought all tokens within a minute at the exchange rate of 6400 BAT for 1 ETH. In total, the team raised 156,250 ETH. If one multiplies this amount by the ETH price ($230.67 at the moment of the token sale), the equal fiat amount will be $36,042,000. If one divides the ETH price by 6400 BAT, the assigned cost of BAT will equal $0.0360.

Basic Attention Token price dynamics

Exchanges started listing the token on 1 June 2017 at the price of 0.1710 USD. On 16 July, it set an all-time low of 0.0718 USD. Token sale participants who held BAT until 27 December could have sold it for 0.4065 USD — this was a high of 2017.

OHLC prices of 2018:

• open — 0.4756 USD;
• all-time high — 0.8920 USD (9 January);
• low — 0.1261 USD (15 December);
• close — 0.1385 USD.

OHLC prices of 2019:

• open — 0.1313 USD;
• low — 0.1055 USD (5 February);
• high — 0.4443 USD (21 April);
• close — 0.1906 USD.

BAT price change in 2020

Let’s list only uptrends and downtrends with price extremes and highs and lows that are noticeable on the 2020 Basic Attention Token chart:

1. 📈 Rise from 8 January to 14 February: 0.1842 USD ⤴ 0.3110 USD.
2. 📉 Fall from 18 February to 16 March: 0.2816 USD ⤵ 0.1118 USD — a low of the year.
3. 📈 Rise from 22 March to 9 May: 0.1246 USD ⤴ 0.2279 USD.
4. 📈 Rise from 25 May to 29 June: 0.1946 USD ⤴ 0.2765 USD.
5. 📈 Rise from 8 to 24 August: 0.2530 USD ⤴ 0.4033 USD — a high of the year.
6. 📉 Fall from 30 August to 24 September: 0.3529 USD ⤵ 0.2131 USD.
7. 📉 Fall from 23 October to 4 November: 0.2229 USD ⤵ 0.1795 USD.
8. 📈 Rise from 20 to 25 November: 0.1957 USD ⤴ 0.2608 USD.

Basic Attention Token predictions for 2021 and prospects

Due to the fact that the Basic Attention Token operates on the Ethereum blockchain, there is no wonder that the BAT token correlates with the ETH coin. Their close bond is easily visible through the dynamics between January and October 2020. Then it disappeared (ETH started growing, while BAT went flat) but started again by late November. Further ahead, the BAT price could be predicted according to the ETH price movement.

Basic Attention Token roadmap

The startup has an official roadmap on https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Roadmap and two blogs: https://basicattentiontoken.org/blog/ and https://brave.com/blog/. It provides information about recent and upcoming changes that can affect the Basic Attention Token price.