Basic Attention Token is 40th on the crypto market with a market cap of $197 million and while this doesn’t sound much, this digital coin has come a long way. The founder and CEO of Basic Attention Token (BAT) is Brendan Eich, and he happens to be a co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox and the creator of JavaScript.
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By all accounts, it seems he knows his way around startups, and investors acknowledged this fact during the BAT ICO launch last year when it raised $35 million in less than 30 seconds of its launch. The coin is not doing bad right now, at the time of press it was trading at near $0.21 and just last month its holders got excited at the prospect of it being listed on Coinbase, something the large U.S.-based crypto exchange says it’s considering.
The Concept Behind BAT
The idea behind the project is to provide a platform that enables Ad placement and allows for micro-payments between publishers, advertisers, and content creators. Essentially eliminating the need for third parties such as ad networks like Google. The token is powered by Ethereum blockchain and is used on a web browser called Brave, which offers this ad services. The developers believe in targeted advertisement that will be more efficient for all parties involved. This will be made possible by tracking user interactions and recording and storing this data in a distributed ledger.
According to the company’s Whitepaper, the BAT system will provide users with, relevant adverts, privacy and security when viewing ads and a share of the BAT tokens for their attention. As for publishers, they will get improved revenue, better reporting, and less fraud. Lastly, advertisers will get less fraud, better attribution, and less expensive customer attention. The token (BAT) will be integrated into all this by having advertisers transact with BAT, the publisher will be paid in BAT and users will be rewarded for their attention in BAT.
So, clearly, this is a project that if successful is bound to revolutionize an industry that is opaque and dominated by several third-party multinationals, while introducing features that are unheard of in such third-party companies.
One particular feature of the BAT system that has attracted users is that it is designed to match users with local advertisers, hence, the results are more relevant and makes it much easier and faster since the user accesses local servers rather than worldwide servers. Other impressive features include Ad matching, which means that the system can access the user’s history data and produce the most relevant ads depending on keyword matches, active tabs and history searches. Privacy has also been an issue in the industry with third-parties receiving private data and using it against users. However, with the BAT system, personal data never leaves the users device. Users are also rewarded for their attention when viewing advertisements, an initiative that will act as an incentive for users to give ads their undivided attention.
Although BAT tokens are primarily designed to be used for exchange between Ad service providers, they can be exchanged for fiat or other cryptocurrencies. Currently, the coin is available in different crypto exchanges and BAT’s partner Uphold.com. Coinbase, which announced a month ago it was considering listing BAT, would be the first major crypto exchange to list the token and this would represent a major step for BAT.
Basic Attention Token brings a new and innovative solution to an industry which is currently outdated and both inefficient and ineffective. The project is excellent and the team led by Brendan Eich is excellent and up to the task. As for the token, much like most, its success is underpinned by the success of the project. However, speculators will have their market share which will influence its price, especially now that there is a possibility that it could be listed on Coinbase.
