Brave Browser, a project by the co-founder of Mozilla, which saw its BAT ICO sell out in seconds, announced they have surpassed 3 million monthly active users.
Sometimes online advertising are getting a bit too much. Everlasting popup windows make it hard to focus on relevant information, thus the Internet surfing turns out of a proactive research to an annoying and time-consuming ads battle.
Well, the developers of Brave Browser make it their mission to fix the web by giving users a safer, faster and better browsing experience and if there is a technology that can disrupt this broken industry, it is blockchain.
Brave Browser, more than a simple ad-blocker, allows users to surf the web, while still allowing webmasters to make revenue. By integrating Bitcoin payments directly on the browser, Brave allows users to tip their favorite websites if they have an active Bitcoin wallet to receive payments with. On top of the monetary aspects, which aim to replace advertising with a tokenization model, Brave is also focused on increasing privacy.
The project is still relatively new, with the ICO held only last summer when Brave Browser raised around $36 million during the 30-second token sale for the platform’s Basic Attention Token (BAT). However, the Brave Browser is now a top 10-app in the Google Play Store’s “free communication apps category” in 21 countries, including the U.S., Canada, France, South Korea, and Argentina.
On Tuesday, the browser created by Javascript creator and Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, announced the passage of 3 million monthly active users marking yet another significant milestone on the project’s rollout.
Over 18,000 publishers and content creators have registered as verified publishers, enabling them to collect BAT donated by Brave users. Of these, the vast majority are YouTube and Twitch accounts, likely owing to the fact that hosting platforms such as YouTube take significant cuts of shared ad revenue.
Last month, Brave Browser launched a monthly giveaway of $500,000 BAT for browser users, alongside monthly payments to Brave Publishers. The new BAT grant program gives users approximately 5 USD in promotional BAT.
Moreover, the firm added several new features to its desktop browser. First, Brave Browser updated in-tab support for Tor tabs during private browsing sessions, further protecting the security of users engaged in sensitive activities.
Secondly, the firm began testing an opt-in advertising that rewards users as well as publishers. Once successfully released, this feature will enable users to receive up to 70 percent of the gross revenue from ads, which will be native to the Brave browser rather than websites themselves. The revenue will be distributed among users and publishers in BAT, which will be converted to local currency through a partnership with cryptocurrency trading platform Uphold.
Nevertheless, while Brave is rapidly expanding its mainstream user base, it could soon face competition for the attention of cryptocurrency community. Earlier this week, Bitmain had paid $50 million for a controlling stake in web browser Opera. Days later, the browser announced its intentions to become the first mainstream browser to introduce a native Ethereum wallet and decentralized application (dApp) browser.
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