Earn While Swiping Ads

Meet Brave, a browser that pays you for viewing ads as notifications on your phone (the one you can swipe away).

the brave browser interface

Brave was launched a few weeks just before the pandemic, on November 13 2019. It was the first of its kind. There isn’t anywhere on the internet where you can enjoy the privilege of getting paid to view ads.

USING BRAVE

The Brave Interface is very very similar to Google Chrome. In fact, if it weren’t for the vibrant colors and exciting features, one could not tell the difference between the two.

Seriously.

Brave pays you in a cryptocurrency called BAT or Basic Attention Token, a token of appreciation for your “basic attention” (get it?)

You can save up your BAT for long term, or until they can complete the integration of the new Brave Wallet which might enable features like a marketplace for pizza or anything, but that’s just me speculating.

For the mean time, you can cash it out using external exchanges like Gemini and Uphold.

KYC — ID Verification

KYC is a requirement for both Gemini and Uphold. However, these exchanges have nothing to do with how Brave operates, codes, and is only provided as an avenue for users to be able to “cash out” that BAT rewards.

In many ways, Brave has been a very reliable browser for my tasks, especially with the built in Onion Router that I can always summon if I wanted a level higher than incognito, without using VPN.

THE BRAVE WALLET

However, I see that in the near future, Brave devs has been hard at work in developing a Brave Internal Wallet that was hinted to be integrated with the Solana blockchain with extremely low, cent level ($0.01) transaction fees

(as opposed to the existing Brave Wallet that’s connected to the Main Ethereum network with insanely high transaction fees)

Personally, I use Brave simply because there isn’t any alternative. This is the first of its kind after all, and there isn’t anywhere on the internet where you can enjoy the privilege of getting paid to view ads.

But that’s the keyword, “privilege” — we are not entitled to it. It is not a right.

This feature can be taken away at any time, and while there are many who complain about the changes to Uphold, its only a matter of time until Brave creates a more direct avenue to use BAT instead of relying on other exchanges. But for this to happen, public support may be necessary for the project to progress faster.

FUTURE OF ADS

The intent was pure — a way to buy some pizza with those ads). So I’m just waiting for that day when we don’t have to rely on Gemini or Uphold (although, still keeping those options intact just in case).

Here’s other things I would look forward to, if there are any plans for any of these at all:

1. Built-in Brave Exchange BraveX (or an integration to an existing one like what Raydium does with Serum)
2. Brave Marketplace (or a place to buy/sell pizza or services using BAT)
3. Improved Brave Creator platform (improved version of the referral program; also maybe monetize my videos or any video creation platform. Think Medium too)
4. Brave Play-To-Earn platform (or simply any way to earn BAT using other means, such as providing some sort of power or anything to a decentralized Brave Marketplace hosting maybe; think about the episode 2 “Million Merits” of Black Mirror where people “bike” to earn — green energy)
5. A direct way to convert fiat to BAT and viceversa (I separated this on purpose because integrating a dex like Serum only provides an avenue to swap to other crypto and not fiat. Though, we might soon be living in an era where crypto will be the default currency, but that’s just me speculating again so don’t get too excited)

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