Brave Software announced this week that they had reached 10 million total downloads for the Android version of their browser, Brave. This follows a total of 5 million downloads in May, and 1 million at the end of last year.
One of the projects in crypto often hailed as having a relatively smooth path to mainstream adoption; Brave Software offers a browser with a built-in ad blocker. From there, ads can be enabled, with a portion of ad revenue going to the user in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT). With ads disabled by default, users can also rest easy that they will not accidentally download malware by visiting mainstream news sites.
The Utility of BAT
The primary essential utility of BAT is that it is used to buy ad slots and have those ads seen by users of the browser. That is to say; advertisers will have to purchase the token on the open market, creating demand for it. As users accumulate BAT simply by browsing (which go into the browser’s built-in the wallet), tokens can also be used to tip content producers, if users want to support them directly. Content producers can also earn BATs themselves by enabling Brave-supported advertisement, which affords them a much larger share of the ad revenue than they would typically receive on sites like Youtube.
In the future, partnerships may also enable BAT to be spent as currency in other apps in exchange for services on those platforms, however, for now, the only immediate use for the token (other than speculation) is to purchase advertisement slots in the up and coming browser.
The Path to Organic Adoption
Compared to many projects in crypto, Brave has come quite far regarding adoption. Although not every one of the ten million downloads corresponds to a unique user, Brave Software reported in July that they were seeing over 3 million active monthly users, and are expecting to hit 5 million by the end of the year.
Unlike most crypto projects, the Brave browser and its token have the advantage that users need not know how crypto works or even care about it. They have not to want to see quite so many ads while browsing the Internet. And it just so happens, there is a market for that.
