Will Basic Attention Token (BAT) Succeed in Providing Fairness and Equality in Advertising?

From banking to infrastructure security, insurance, and voting system, blockchain technology is disrupting most industries as we know them today. By the end of 2019, businesses are expected to spend $2.9B on the technology, up almost 90% from 2018, according to IDC.

After years of internet advertising, regulation of the service is still an uncertain territory. With ban implementations, unfair promotions, and questionable marketing practices, there’s often a feeling that chaos reigns and there’s no easy way to a modern and equitable advertising scenario.

Nevertheless, the industry is still leading in the services business.

In 2016, online advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and broadcast television, and in 2017 it totaled $83.0 billion, a 14% increase over the $72.50 billion in revenues in 2016.

Also, from a performance perspective, the industry is still experiencing hiccups. Ads add up tons of mobile data usage to loading web pages, and both advertisers and consumers suffer from any lack of protocols.

With the rise of blockchain, BAT Basic Attention Token has set the pace in advertising with Brave browser. 

As their website clearly states, there’s no doubt that  “Digital advertising is broken. It is a market filled with middlemen and fraudsters, hurting users, publishers, and advertisers.”

Brave compensate advertisers and users. Instead of a middleman like Google or Facebook’s ad arm, advertisers will list directly onto Brave’s blockchain-based browser. Users who opt-in receive fewer, but better-targeted ads without the malware. And advertisers get better data on their spending.

It blocks ads and trackers that slow down computers and invade privacy while it rewards customers for browsing and choosing to view ads. It comes with a built-in ad blocker that provides security protection with optimized data and battery performance.

This is the reason why the blockchain technology needs to be integrated into the digital advertising industry. It brings in transparency, privacy, decentralization, and honesty by connecting the publishers and advertisers directly with the consumers, without any middlemen.

What is Basic Attention Token (BAT)?

BAT is a utility token based on the Ethereum technology that can also be used as a unit of account between advertisers, publishers, and users in a new, blockchain-based digital advertising and services platform. 

The token is not a digital currency, security, or a commodity. 

Those who have some knowledge of how a blockchain works with a cryptocurrency will understand that the token is not necessary to the existence of the Brave browser.

This is only another case in which the business decides to launch its native currency to enhance its presence in the blockchain world and brand their own business under a crypto umbrella. 

Surely, any other existing cryptocurrency could have been adopted, and the result would be the same. 

In a future world in which we will experience increasing businesses identified with their native crypto, BAT will probably be in pole position when it comes to advertising.