How to earn BAT (Basic Attention Token) by just browsing the WWW

tl;dr;

Download Brave browser to earn BAT whenever ads are shown. You can also earn BAT as a publisher (see instructions below).

Important Update

As of November 2020, the Brave Referral Program has been shut down.

This does not impact the Brave Publisher program – which is at the heart of the Brave project : rewarding producers and consumers of online content.

The above download link contains our referral code, but it will no longer pay us for downloads.

We’ve left the link up anyway as we feel Brave Browser is a great product and we still use it ourselves and recommend it as well!

Be Brave

A revolution is growing at the heart of the WWW.

Old advertising models are facing growing criticism due to privacy concerns, for slowing down the WWW and, more commonly, due to visual pollution and general annoyance.

Several blockchain related projects attempt to solve the WWW advertising problem using innovative solutions.

The Brave Browser along with the BAT – Basic Attention Token is quickly becoming the most popular cryptocurrency-based monetization solution for websites (and online content in general).

How BAT Monetization Works

Basic Attention Token is designed for micro payments.

Instead of forcing website visitors to view ads or imposing a paywall, content creators receive BAT when visitors use the Brave Browser and tip the website owner. The time (attention span) spent at a website also counts towards revenue share. Authors also receive BAT payments for the attention devoted to their content.

The Brave Rewards program has expanded a lot during recent months, now you can tip BAT tokens to tweets, Youtube videos and several other publisher channels that you enjoy.

During the initial stages of Brave Browser development, users also receive free BAT tokens which were allocated precisely to get BAT known to the public.

As you accrue browsing time, Brave Browser acts as a one-way wallet, allowing you to send free BAT to site owners.

Therefore, there are many ways to earn BAT : becoming a publisher, browsing the WWW using Brave Browser and, of course, by trading other coins or tokens for BAT.

The very first step to get started earning Basic Attention Token is to download Brave Browser.

Download Brave Browser

Before you do anything else, please click the Brave logo below to download the Brave Browser, install it and start browsing using it. You will immediately start earning BAT from your browsing activity.

(Disclosure: Please note that Crypto.BI itself is a Brave publisher. We receive an incentive when you download Brave using the above link.)

Once you download the browser and open it you will notice a familiar user interface. In fact, Brave uses the Chromium browser engine under the hood! Part of the Brave development team’s job is to merge changes from the Chromium source code into Brave.

The rendering engine is where the similarity to Chrome ends.

Brave is privacy-oriented, has native ad blocking capabilities, newer versions come with a secure built-in password manager, anonymous browsing and, of course, a BAT wallet!

For now, the Brave BAT wallet is one-way. It allows you to tip website owners but not withdraw funds to your own accounts. This might change in the future, but at the time of this writing the BAT being distributed in this way is meant to circulate BAT and make it known among publishers.

When you reach a website that is a Brave publisher, you will notice a small notification icon to the right of the URL address bar:

When this little icon becomes colored and displays a tiny green check it means you’re currently visiting a Brave publisher.

If you’ve got funds on your Brave wallet you will be able to tip this site with a certain amount of BAT.

Become a Publisher

Becoming a Brave publisher is very simple.

Visit the Basic Attention Token Publishers page and start the signup process.

Insert your email address and submit the form. You will reach the following screen:

Don’t worry if the email takes a few minutes to arrive. The Brave notifications system seems to execute some verifications before to send the emails and they always take a few minutes to arrive.

You will receive an email that requests you to click on a link to confirm:

Note that the sign-up form did not ask our name. Since we used brave [at] crypto.bi as a test email address for this tutorial (because contact [at] crypto.bi was already in use), their system assumed we are called “Brave“!

Once you verify your email you should see the Brave dashboard where you can add “channels” in order to get your referral link to start promoting Brave Browser.

Here’s a nice video which explains how to get the referral link:

After you add a channel, you’ll receive a referral link for that channel:

The Twitter and Facebook icons are linked to the sharing URL in those social platforms. You can use this social link to promote Brave Browser in social media directly.

The dashboard allows you to monitor how many Brave downloads you’ve generated:

Every time someone downloads Brave Browser using your referral link, you will earn U$ 5 in BAT tokens:

Payments are made every day 8 of the month.

If you do not set up an Uphold account, the BAT will accumulate and carry over to the next month.

Set Up Tipping

Another way to earn BAT tokens is to receive tips from website visitors.

This is the future killer app for BAT tokens.

The idea is to remove annoying advertisements from the WWW and to allow website administrators to earn by receiving BAT tips for quality content.

First you need to add a “Channel”, which is Brave’s name for a website publisher. On the top right hand corner of your BAT dashboard, click on “+ Add Channel” (same procedure used to get referral link) and proceed to fill in your website’s information:

Once you are approved as a publisher, your website will display the already mentioned colored heart icon and a green check next to the URL bar.

You should also set up a tipping banner by clicking on “Tipping Banner”:

Make sure to create a great looking tipping banner in order to increase your BAT earnings!

Open Uphold Account

By now you may be wondering: if the Brave Browser’s wallet is one-way and cannot withdraw funds, then how do you receive BAT payments?

You guessed it: you must sign up for a third party payment processor!

Uphold is the official Basic Attention Token publisher program’s payments processor.

Uphold performs KYC and verification procedures so that payments are legally cleared in every jurisdiction.

Head over to the Uphold website, and click on sign-up. You will then need to complete a 3 step procedure:

Once you finish the signup procedure, you should see a dashboard like so:

We strongly recommend that you complete the Uphold ID verification procedure. When your Uphold account is verified you will be able to deposit and withdraw fiat money.

You can then add bank accounts and credit cards to your Uphold account:

Uphold allows you to exchange BAT for U$ and several other currencies, including cards that you can load up and spend:

Conclusion

The combination of a fully featured payments processor such as Uphold, with the decentralization and blockchain security of BAT creates a user and publisher-friendly environment that should generate immense value for BAT investors.

Basic Attention Token has great valuation potential since it already has a working application and is backed by technology veterans such as Brendan Eich – a Netscape web browser pioneer and creator of the Javascript language.

Deep understanding of web browser development, allied with a concrete use case such as monetizing online content, can generate a true revolution in online culture.

Users will be able to reward their favorite authors using the completely decentralized BAT token and publishers will be able to monetize their hard work through the Brave Publisher program.

Finally, Uphold glues the decentralized system to real world finance by providing a complete payment platform that brings together the BAT cryptocurrency and real world bank accounts and payment methods.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction on how to earn BAT and that you are as excited as we are about this brave new technology!

Links

How to earn cryptocurrency browsing the WWW

Download Brave Browser from Crypto.BI’s partner page

How Brave Browser checks verified publishers

BAT Basic Attention Token in a Nutshell

Brave and BAT (Basic Attention Token) Resources

How to Earn and Use Cryptocurrency With the Brave Browser

Get rewarded for browsing and support your favorite content creators

How do I earn BAT using Brave?