BAT – Powering Web Searches
The digital asset space is still quite young, but we’ve seen a number of unique use cases and digital assets born during its short life. Among these assets is what’s known as Basic Attention Token or BAT, and Brave is the network it empowers.
What’s So Interesting About Brave and BAT?
Brave and BAT share a unique relationship. Brave is a decentralized, blockchain-based web browser that stems from Ethereum technology. BAT is the cryptocurrency digital marketers use to pay for ads on Brave.
The network has established what’s known as the Basic Attention Token reward program. More than 13 million users have joined in just the last year alone. The program allows community members to earn tokens for their browsing activity. They can then use these tokens to pay their favorite content creators on Brave.
This Is What Makes BAT Special
BAT is a novel currency designed with a specific purpose. While other digital currencies have taken on more speculative auras, in other words, people invest in them and are left to chance. Its creators built BAT predominantly to accompany Brave as a payment tool.
The BAT token is used to distribute funds to publishers, readers, and advertisers who create and market online content. It was launched in 2017 and enjoyed one of the fastest sell-outs of an initial coin offering (ICO) in crypto history. While BAT is not a top ten currency, it boasts more than 40 million users despite being only four years old.
This type of adoption and utility is best when considering a digital asset as an investment case. BAT has shown it's useful and in demand, and over time the price should trend higher based on these factors.
BAT Pricing & Trading
Originally, the BAT token was pegged to ETH. In the whitepaper, the exchange rate was announced as 6,400 BAT per ETH. This was the price at which BAT was sold at the ICO on May 31, 2017.
BAT began trading in the summer of 2017 at around 16 cents. It reached a peak of nearly 90 cents in January 2018. This was a time when many digital currencies were reaching new highs. Bitcoin, for example, was trading at nearly $20,000. However, like many other crypto assets, it crashed a few months later and traded for 18 cents in April 2018. It reached an all-time high of $1.65 in April 2021, and it has a market cap of more than $2.6 billion. CoinMarketCap.com currently ranks it as the 75th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
A Few Final Words
The Basic Attention Token has become a powerful payment tool in a short amount of time. It has a clear purpose and is opening the world of crypto to advertising opportunities it may not have had otherwise. While BAT has utility as a payments and rewards token, SMART VALOR also offers trading on the token, which is another way to potentially profit from Brave and BAT's growth.