Basic Attention Token or BAT, is one of my favorite cryptos and is currently held in my portfolio.
What is Basic Attention Token (BAT)?
On their website BAT describes their token as being:
"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."
BAT is meant to be used as a utility token for the purchasing and selling of digital ad services. BAT is an ERC20 token and therefore, can be held on hardware wallets like the Trezor or the Ledger Nano S. The BAT token aims to fix a huge problem in digital advertising - the problem of attention.
Attention has become a huge issue with digital ads. The number of people using ad blockers has grown exponentially and this is causing huge damage to advertisers and content publishers alike. To combat this issue, many websites and publications have designed countermeasures that detect adblockers and ask you to disable them if you wish to continue using their site. This causes an inconvenience for the user.
The fight for our attention has become an issue for all parties involved:
- Advertisers
- Content Publishers
- Users
Using the BAT token, users can get paid for interacting with Ads that they have more incentive to care about, while content publishers and advertisers will also earn more revenue from the higher-quality attention being placed on their ads and they'll save a significant amount of money from not having to "carpet bomb" us with ads. Rather than just show ads to whoever they can and try to infiltrate our lives, we can earn BAT tokens for actually wanting to interact with ads that are interesting to us.
Why Invest in BAT
- Win-Win-Win
- Team
- Functional Product
- Utility Token
- Additional Use Cases
1. Win-Win-Win
As I said before, the BAT token will bring more revenue and less cost to digital advertisers, allow content publishers to make more money from ad spots and tips from users, and allow users to actually earn money for interacting with ad Content. This win-win-win situation is arguably the biggest reason to buy BAT as it incentivizes every party involved in digital advertising to switch over to using the BAT token. The more people who utilize BAT, the higher the BAT token will rise in value.
2. Team
BAT's team is by far one of the most impressive ones in the crypto space. I recommend you take a look at the team on the BAT website.
For the sake of time, I'll just feature the founder and co-founder in this article. Note their previous positions and involvement in some BIG time projects:
3. Functional Product
The Brave browser is already a functional product and you can use it right now. My experience with the browser has been amazing thus far! It tells you a lot of cool statistics that really make you reconsider other browsers. Time saved and ads blocked are 2 figures that are much larger than I expected them to be.
Many cryptos have no functional product and are just startups with a great idea and a whitepaper. BAT chose to set itself apart by first making a viable product and then raising the capital needed to take their project/product to the next level.
4. Utility Token
Something you'll notice about my whole crypto portfolio is that I tend to invest into utility tokens. That is, tokens that actually have a real use case and aren't just "ICO gimmicks". BAT's intention is very clearly stated - the BAT token is not designed as an investment vehicle, it's designed as a utility token. BUT, just because the token is designed with utility doesn't mean it's a poor investment, in fact, I believe it to be the complete opposite. The fact that the token can be used for something is what will ultimately drive up the value.
5. Additional Use Cases
BAT's main purposes is to be a utility token and means of exchange in the digital ad world, but the team isn't closed off to the other potential use cases for BAT. Here's a list of potential use cases from the BAT website:
"Given the open-source nature of the project, however, we also envision that as we develop the BAT protocol, third-party developers may come up with new and novel uses for the token.
Some of these could include:
- Other browsers: One obvious use case for the token is for it to be used inside other browsers. This means that the BAT ecosystem will extend out to anyone using any of the current popular browsers.
- Telegram bot: In messaging apps like Telegram, we foresee the possibility of users being paid in BAT to view one ad.
- WeChat official account: WeChat has become a robust system of bots, payments, and other solutions. We foresee the creation of different WeChat solutions integrating the the token.
- Token and Status: The BAT also has attention-based applicability inside the Ethereum-based messaging/payment platforms such as Coinbase’s new Token app and Status app."
So there you have it, yet another crypto I'll be hodling till death do us part 🤩🚀. There's a lot more to the BAT token and I hope you take a deeper look into it and even try out the Brave browser! Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice and is for entertainment purposes only. Thank you!
Thanks for reading! Here's the Question of The Day, don't forget to post your answers in the comments!
QOTD: Do you think BAT could revolutionize digital advertising? Why or why not?
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-Khaleel