008: Basic Attention Token (BAT)
BAT and Brave browser. How is Brave different than other web browsers? Well, you get paid to use it, in crypto! Plus, it blocks ads everywhere.
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Episode Transcription – Basic Attention Token (BAT)
Michael 00:00
Welcome to another episode of Candid Crypto. We’re your host, Michael and Liam. And today we’re going to be talking about one of our favorite crypto projects. BAT, also known as Basic Attention Token.
Liam 00:14
The old saying goes;
“Nothing in this world is free.”
The internet is seemingly full of free products. And that comes with a catch. Our services like Facebook, Twitter, and Google actually free. “No, they’re not”. Ladies and gentlemen, you are the product. These companies have figured out how to sell your personal data and your privacy to make money.
Michael 00:41
Damn.
Liam 00:42
As time has gone on. And this advertising model of gathering data and selling it has become a hot topic not just on the minds of Internet users, but also a pain point for advertisers themselves. People have thought there has to be a better way. Brendan Eich and Brian Bondi [phonetic 01:03], two highly distinguished individuals in the internet browsing software industry recognized this problem. And they launched Basic Attention Token in 2017. I pretty poignantly remember their ICO, it was to the tune of what, Michael? 30 plus million?
Michael 01:21
Yeah, 35 million. And apparently, they sold their entire ICO in just a matter of minutes. And I think at the time it was going for 15 cents, since then they’ve really continue to evolve their mission of what BAT is a native token to their Brave browser. And these founders actually created Mozilla Firefox. And they’re part of Khan Academy and a bunch of other really distinguishable names. So that is one reason why I really liked this project, because it has a really solid team and they know what they’re talking about. Since then, it’s rolled out its attention based advertising experience to users in most countries around the world.
Liam 01:26
If you’re in North Korea, you will not receive advertisements on Brave.
Michael 02:19
No, rocket coin.
Liam 02:24
So, the Basic Attention Token is what powers this new Blockchain based digital advertising platform designed to fairly reward users for their attention, while also providing advertisers with a better return on their ad spend. So it’s all through the Brave browser. And as a Brave browser user, you can opt in to receive ads, and you get paid in Basic Attention Token for having done so.
On the flip side, advertisers can deliver targeted ads to maximize engagement and cut down losses due to ad fraud and abuse.
To make a long story short, they machine learn your preferences and your browsing history locally on your computer, that information never gets transmitted across to Brave servers, they just send you a catalog of all their ads, then those ads are matched with your preferences. So this BAT, it’s the unit of reward in this advertising ecosystem, and is exchanged between advertisers, publishers and users.
Michael 03:21
I initially started using the browser I think almost a year ago after you recommended it to me, Liam and I was hooked ever since it’s nearly identical to Chrome or any of your other you know, main browsing platforms. Except for it’s faster on your mobile device and on your desktop. And then you get paid in cryptocurrency, so I don’t know what gets cooler than that.
Liam 03:49
I love the fact that I can watch YouTube videos with no ads. I can even AirPlay those YouTube videos with no ads. It’s pretty radical.
Michael 03:56
Yeah, I hook up my computer to my TV. And I watch Hulu with no ads. I don’t know how it’s done. And I’m sure they’re going to try to get around it one day. But-
Liam 04:06
I can kind of see the tug of war between advertisers and then the people who block ads because advertisers will slip through the cracks sometimes and actually get their ads through the ad blockers but those quickly get patched because there’s an army of people who do not want to see ads.
Michael 04:21
Yeah. And I mean, I think the reason why both of us are really bullish on this project is since we joined, it has nearly doubled in user size. And I only see this growth continuing.
Liam 04:37
Yeah. In essence, the way we’ve described this so far is that it’s advertisers to users, but that’s not the entire ecosystem. There’s actually a third party and a third party is the content creators themselves. So if you have a YouTube or Twitch or Twitter, or a website, blog, you can hook up all of those to the Brave reward ecosystem, and people can just tip you directly from their browser with money they have made from browsing the internet.
Michael 05:07
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing and Basic Attention Token.org. there. They have the figure of over 1,000,001 million content creators, and that number blows me away. That’s a lot of content creators.
Liam 05:25
The only one I know off the top of my head is Mr. Beast. I’m pretty sure Mr. Beast is a free verified creator.
Michael 05:34
Yes, it is.
Liam 05:34
Let me double check that but Mr. Beast also loved Mr. Beast. I just tipped Mr. Beast, one BAT 66 cents, It’s wild, you just click two buttons, and then boom, your tip is sent. It’s pretty awesome.
Michael 05:56
Yeah, it is pretty cool. There’s a lot of people throwing a lot of money into these ad campaigns. And very notable names Verizon [phonetic 06:06] eToro crypto.com.
Liam 06:08
Twitch is also running ads on there. [crosstalk] Twitch ads.
Michael 06:13
I don’t know, those are pretty big names. And we’ll see. You know, as they continue to evolve their product because they have a team. The founders are solid. They have a team of developers fully working on this. And I can only see them making better partnerships.
I listened to another podcast about how Basic Attention Token they’re working a lot with unstoppable domains, which sells domains through NFTs, which Liam and I both own. So that’s pretty cool.
Liam 06:45
Speaking of NFTs, we got more Candid Crypto NFTs coming. I have been diligently researching how to build and deploy these things and expect more content soon for those of you who are more technically inclined.
Michael 06:57
Hell yeah!! And I don’t know, I mean, you can really buy it anywhere. It’s on all the popular exchanges.
Liam 07:10
Basic Attention Token is pretty universal at this point across crypto exchanges. And I thought it was interesting that Grayscale launched a Basic Attention Token based fund or trust.
Michael 07:24
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Liam 07:26
Grayscale launched a Basic Attention Token Trust, which they released like a Bitcoin trust and Ethereum trust. And they also released a Basic Attention Token Trust. So that’s pretty cool.
Michael 07:38
Institutional money.
Liam 07:39
This thing has… Yeah, there are evidently people who think that this project is going to fulfill the needs of many, many people. And Michael and I are a little biased. Before I say anything, none of what we say is considered investment advice, please do your own research. Michael and I definitely took away a chunk of change from Basic Attention Token the past year as the price went from 30 cents up to almost $1.50 in the past month and a half.
So we’re certainly biased in that in that regard. But this token creates its own ecosystem. And I think it’s really compelling. I use Brave all the time. And I would consider myself a power user of a fair amount of software products, this Brave browser does everything I needed to do. I can Chromecast I can use allows me to do everything I could do in Google Chrome, just with no ads. And money.
Michael 08:38
Yeah. And the reason why I personally really love this project is because it’s one of the very few crypto projects where it’s not kind of theoretical, it’s not through, you know, laid out in technical terms, you can literally download the Brave browser and start earning bat their native token in a matter of minutes. And it works. I mean, it
Liam 09:02
does work. It’s kind of astounding, because, yeah, right, this proves the value proposition for this token is right in front of your face. Okay, I’m going to download the Brave browser and see what this thing can do. But you’ll probably see, okay, this makes sense. I receive ads ethically in exchange for cryptocurrency. Love it, love it.
Michael 09:22
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. And you can opt into any if you don’t want any ads, and you don’t want to earn any money. You don’t even have to opt into that. Yep. It’s just a notification that pops up every at a set interval that you agree to. And it’s all based on your time actually, on your computer. I’ve earned, I don’t know 20 $30 Over the past year by just using this browser. And who says when it goes up to $2 Who knows it could be $2 by the end of the year. You know that $20 is now $50, all for free.
Liam 10:01
I bought two $5 Starbucks gift cards with my basic attention tokens. And I gave them to my mom and dad. And I said, Hey, you know, I bought these. I bought these browsing the internet.
Michael 10:20
That’s hilarious.
Liam 10:22
It’s fun because you can illustrate how, and where the value add comes in. I like it. Basic Attention Token, look it up, get the Brave browser, join the BAT ecosystem. Thank you very much for tuning into this week’s episode of Candid Crypto. Coming up is a brand new website, we’re doing the entire thing and WordPress, we’re moving from our single index dot HTML to many different articles and write ups that Michael and I are cooking up. Our grand launch is now scheduled for Episode 10. So stay tuned for more content. Also, I’m going to revisit the NFT thing and show you guys how to deploy things on the Mainnet, how to do your smart contracts securely, et cetera, et cetera.
Michael 11:17
And you can always reach out to us on our website @CandidCryptoPodcast.com and just hit us up on social media. We’re trying to grow our Twitter base, our Instagram base, and we’re going to keep everyone updated through those as well.
Liam 11:30
Thanks, everyone. Tune in next week.
