Basic Attention (BAT)

BAT is most closely associated with Brave, an open-source browser that blocks many conventional ads, trackers, and malicious scripts by default. Within the Brave Ads system, users can choose to view privacy-preserving advertisements and may receive BAT rewards for their attention. Advertisers use BAT to fund campaigns, while publishers and creators can earn BAT when users engage with their content or send contributions.

A central idea behind BAT is that user attention has measurable economic value, but that value should not require the exposure of personal browsing data to large advertising networks. Brave performs ad matching locally on the user’s device, meaning targeting can occur without sending detailed behavioral profiles to outside servers. This architecture distinguishes BAT from traditional ad-tech models that depend heavily on cross-site tracking.

The token was introduced in 2017 through an initial coin offering and was developed by the team behind Brave. Key figures include Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla, and Brave co-founder Brian Bondy. BAT remains one of the more established crypto projects focused on consumer software, combining a widely used browser, a tokenized rewards model, and a practical attempt to reshape how advertising revenue is distributed across the web.