Celebrating BAT’s One Year Anniversary: Key Milestones and a Glimpse of What’s to Come
One year ago, the Basic Attention Token (BAT) sale started around 7.30am PT and sold out within 30 seconds, reaching the cap of 156,250 ETH and raising $36 million. As part of the sale, three hundred million tokens were set aside as a user growth pool (UGP) to incentivize users and publishers to join the platform. BAT is one of the few projects that raised a substantial amount via a token sale, has a product used by millions, and has consistently grown the utility of the token on its platform through partnerships and development. Today, as we look at BAT’s progress and growth, we’d like to recap the milestones we’ve reached in just one year:
- Last August, Uphold started supporting BAT, enabling Uphold members to hold, send, and convert BAT within their Uphold wallet.
- By September, the BAT community had grown to over 40 regional groups on Facebook (over 50 today).
- Within 4.5 months of the sale (October), the first phase of BAT (Mercury) was completed with the integration of BAT into the Brave browser and Brave Payments, converting payments from bitcoin to BAT and allowing BAT contributions to publishers.
- By November, the BAT platform was expanded to YouTube, enabling audiences to use Brave Payments to reward their favorite creators with BATs, and then further expanded to Twitch streamers in March.
- In February, we simplified the BAT platform for our publishers and content creators, allowing a single account to manage multiple properties (web site, YouTube account, or Twitch account) to collect BAT.
- Via partnerships with Dow Jones Media Group (April) and Townsquare Media (May), BAT blockchain-based technology is being tested in digital publishing and advertising. BAT is also partnering with YouTube stars Bart Baker and Philip DeFranco regarding new reward programs and community outreach.
The BAT platform has also seen growth and utility in multiple areas this past year, including:
- Over 2.4 million monthly active users for the Brave browser.
- Over 16,000 verified publishers, including over 11,000 YouTube creators with over 180 million combined subscribers.
- A vibrant community with thousands of participants on Twitter, and Reddit.
- Over 63,000 token holders.
- $1 million equivalent in BAT allocated from the User Growth Pool to over 52,000 publishers and creators.
- An ongoing $2 million referral program for publishers and creators, with over 7,500 currently participating.
Later this year, we will deliver new features and announce new partners for the BAT platform, including:
- Monthly payments to both publishers (via Brave Payments) and Brave users (via regular grants from the User Growth Pool), so users can support more creators and get rewarded for browsing with Brave.
- BAT features for mobile platforms.
- Opt-in, privacy-preserving ads that reward users with BAT.
- A revamped Brave Payments designed for ease-of-use.
- New features for the wallet in partnership with Uphold to make the contribution experience more seamless for users.
- Partnerships with more publishers and creators.
As we celebrate BAT’s first year, we’d like to thank all of our users, supporters, and creators for these achievements and for helping us scale a platform that is revolutionizing browsing and digital advertising. In the next year, we’re looking forward to reconnecting users, publishers, and advertisers to deploy a model that will preserve privacy, contribute to creator revenue, and reduce fraud, creating a better web for all.