The introduction of BAT allows publishers, advertisers, and users to connect in a more efficient, transparent and decentralized marketplace that reduces fraud, privacy violations, and malvertisements while increasing publisher revenue.

BATs are based on user attention, which is really just focused mental engagement, and can be used to obtain advertising and other attention-based services on the BAT platform.

advertisers facing poor reporting and targeting, and publishers losing billions in revenue — while fraud has skyrocketed. Users have lost their privacy, face increasing malware risks, pay high charges to download trackers and ads, and suffer slow speeds.

Over the last 12 years, publishers have lost approximately 66% of their revenue.

In 2016, ad fraud created by Internet bots cost advertisers $7.2 billion, up from $6.3 billion in 2015.

Up to 50% of the average user’s mobile data is used for ads and trackers, costing up to $23 a month.

In the new blockchain-based digital advertising platform, users will opt in to receive advertising. If they do, their attention will be privately monitored on-device in the Brave browser, without tracking. Publishers will be rewarded accordingly with BATs — tokens of utility in a secure, private, and anonymous advertising system based in the browser and the mobile app webview. Users will also get a share of BATs for participating.

Users: strong privacy and security when viewing advertisements, improved relevance and performance, and a share of tokens.
Publishers: improved revenue, better reporting, and less fraud.
Advertisers: less expensive customer attention, less fraud, and better attribution.

1.0 BAT: BAT wallet integrated with the Brave browser. Verification and transactions to be handled by Brave’s internal Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) ledger system to protect individual user anonymity from advertisers, publishers and third parties.

Beyond 1.0 BAT: Make the transfer and verification process entirely distributed on Ethereum using a state channel scheme with zero knowledge proof protocol for ensuring user privacy.

Attention is measured as viewed for content and ads only in the browser’s active tab in real time. The Attention Value for the ad will be calculated based on incremental duration and pixels in view in proportion to relevant content, prior to any direct engagement with the ad.

As Brave moves to a fully decentralized micropayment system, we expect other developers to use our free and open source infrastructure to develop their own use cases for BAT.