3|How I earned $80 in crypto for FREE just by using the Internet 🖥
An overview of the Brave browser and why you should use it
A little bit about me
Hi, I'm Rohan.
I'm a medical student from the UK with an interest in technology and entrepreneurship, particularly when it comes to cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Apologies for the clickbait, but today's blog is gonna be a short one that goes over a simple way that I have personally used to get free crypto and earn money whilst I've been using the internet. It's not going to give you a lot of money but it's going to give you a few extra £s/$s a month with no real downside. It's also going to show a way how Web 3.0 companies are going to change we interact with the internet and what we expect from companies.Â
NOTE: NOTHING IN THIS BLOG COUNTS AS FINANCIAL ADVICE. ALWAYS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. THIS IS JUST MEANT TO BE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.Â
What is Brave Browser
Brave is a Web 3.0 internet browser, built by one of the founders of Mozilla (the creators of the popular Firefox browser) and the creator of Javascript. It’s built on top of Chromium which is the same engine that powers Google’s Chrome browser but with a focus on data protection and user privacy. It's got a few extra features that make it special like a built-in ad blocker, crypto wallet and the ability to earn free crypto. Essentially it’s the same as Chrome but with the ability to earn free money.
This sounds too good to be true. How can I earn money with Brave and how does it work?
It’s quite simple really. Through cookies and scripts inbuilt into websites, companies like Google and Facebook are able to track your actions across the web, even if you don't have a Facebook or Google account (and let's be real, that's no one these days). Here's a short Medium article about how they do it. The Chrome browser itself also has this sort of code in it that helps Google track users and how they use the web.Â
By doing this these companies are able to use our data to serve us targetted ads and generate billions of $$$. We've all seen how manipulative these companies can be and all the controversy they've generated as a result of this.Â
Brave lets you opt into having ads and in return, you get 70% of the ad revenue in the form of their cryptocurrency, the Basic Attention Token (BAT). The other 30% is kept by the Brave Foundation. This completely switches the ad model and lets us be paid for our data. The ads appear as little pop-up notifications.
As I mentioned before, Brave comes with its own pre-installed ad blocker called Brave Shields. This is great at getting rid of all those annoying ads but you can opt into receiving Brave ads through the Brave Rewards program. The way it works is that every now and then you'll get a small notification on the side of your screen or on the new tab page. You don't even need to click on the ad. In return for seeing the ad, you'll get a portion of the ad revenue, in the form of Brave's native cryptocurrency token, the Basic Attention Token (BAT). You get around 70% of the ad revenue with 30% going to Brave.Â
In line with their privacy focus, the ads you receive don't collect any private info from you and none of your data ever leaves your computer.Â
This is why Brave isn't a scam or a weird money-making scheme. Instead of big tech using our data to make money and giving us nothing in return for it, we finally get a cut of the ad revenue.Â
OK great. I have these BAT tokens. What makes them valuable and why would anyone want them?Â
Before talking about the price of BAT and how much you can earn, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the actual use cases of BAT and what makes it valuable:Â
Donate to creators:Â you can use BAT to donate to your favourite creators if they're a part of the BAT creator program. This bypasses middle-men platforms like Patreon that take around 9-12% of the donations given to artists and creatorsÂ
Defi:Â BAT is an Ethereum token. Without getting too technical, it means that it doesn't use its own blockchain and instead uses the Ethereum network. This means that you can use it in all the decentralised finance (Defi) platforms on Ethereum like Uniswap (a decentralised trading exchange where you can swap BAT for BTC, ETH or other currencies), lend it out and earn interest on platforms like Aave or borrow against it. BAT is soon to also be available on the Solana (SOL) blockchain which has insanely low transaction fees so should increase its use in Defi.Â
Brave Talk and VPN:Â Aside from just being a browser, Brave has launched a few other services that are also all privacy-focused. Currently, they're free to use as they are still quite new but I wouldn't be surprised to see BAT payments used to pay for premium features
Paying for adverts: This is the most important and obvious use case for BAT. Companies can pay for ads in either USD or BAT. With over Brave passing over 36m users (and that's back in September) that's a large potential audience for advertisers
These are only the current things that are going on with the Brave and the BAT project. You can imagine a world where we've got a decentralised video streaming platform like Youtube or using BAT to pay for online newspaper or magazine paywall/subscriptions. With how fast the crypto/web 3.0 space moves and how large the advertising space is (worth >$150bn in the US alone), there's bound to be some crazy uses for BAT that we can't even imagine yet.Â
How much can I earn?Â
The amount of money you earn isn’t going to be a lot if I’m honest. The amount you earn depends on how many ads you see and this itself depends on where you live, time of year and a bunch of other factors that advertisers use when deciding where to allocate marketing budgets.Â
I've been earning around 3-4 BAT a month (roughly about $5 a month on average) between Brave on my computer and my phone, but this changes with the price of the actual token. Back when I first started using Brave, the price of BAT was around $0.30 so I was earning more BAT per ad. Now With BAT at almost 1 BAT = $1.20, I've been earning slightly less BAT. This might not sound like a lot but it starts to add up. BAT is up almost 3X since I've started and if the price of BAT goes up, all the BAT I've collected in my wallet will also increase.Â
Since I've started using Brave back in March, I've made around 67 BAT which is worth ~ $88 (£65) at the time of writing. Obviously, the price can fluctuate wildly but it's enough to pay for a nice meal or the new COD.Â
🧠Final Thoughts ðŸ§
For too long have big tech used our data and given us nothing in return. Brave changes this. In my opinion, there's no real reason not to use Brave. The ads are a minor inconvenience and the rewards you get are actually kind of decent. $5 a month for just using the internet may not seem like a lot to us in the developed countries but it's a fair bit of extra cash in some developing countries.Â
I have high hopes for Brave and the BAT token. Brave is constantly expanding into new catergories and recently even launched their own privacy focused search engine. The fact they've now got an inbuilt crypto wallet and the move to Solana means that we're going to see BAT adoption increase. Aside from changing the entire advertising industry, it's going to act as a great gateway for people new to Defi, crypto and I can't wait to see it be adopted as a payment option on websites or the decentralised web.Â
If you want to download Brave, I’ve included a setup by step video below and some more info about it.
Extra Links and Resources
How to install Brave and setup Brave Rewards:
More about Brave and BAT by WhiteBoard Crypto (another amazing channel I recommend)
The BAT Project Subreddit:
One of the best places to keep up to date with all the development at Brave, adoption of the BAT token and anything else related to the project
https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/
Hopefully, this blog helped you. If it has given it a share and a like.
Too long? Too complicated? Or anything else. Just leave a comment below and let me know what you think !