Created in 2016 by Bredan Eich, the founder of Firefox, Brave is a historical pioneer of web 3.0 browsing. Despite undeniable qualities, the browser and its BAT cryptocurrency are stagnating, and struggling to stand out in the race for next-generation browsers. Blame it on risky marketing and an unhelpful native cryptocurrency.
Broken promises
Despite the indisputable qualities of the Brave browser, its results are disappointing today. Blame it on the many promises that have not been kept. Released in 2016, Brave was indeed destined to be decentralized, innovative, and had to revolutionize the Internet economy with its cryptocurrency, the BAT.
Mandatory KYC
Despite these stated promises of decentralization, Brave now requires its users to pass a thorough identity check to gain access to BAT. In practice, it even uses a third-party solution via the Gemini platform. Far from his initial aspirations.
On paper, the initial idea was nevertheless attractive: to offer a share of the advertising revenue pie in the form of cryptocurrency, by redistributing the value generated by navigation. In reality, the identification (KYC, know your customer) is a legal obligation on the part of the company that publishes the Brave browser. This illustrates once again the usefulness of truly decentralized networks. Because having to film yourself in order to access your BATs is nothing to be happy about. The project is thus today caught in a vice between the complexity of the regulations and its initial promise of respect for the privacy. Result: Brave fills neither, and maintains a particularly uncomfortable in-between.
A stagnant ecosystem
Partly because of this system, the browser struggles to sustain its circular web 3.0 economy system. Some users also complain about a random and not very transparent distribution of BAT rewards, or even outright bugs of rewards. A very bad signal sent to users which does not seem to help an already rather delicate situation. On Reddit, the r/brave community has fewer and fewer members, while more and more Internet users are expressing their doubts about the project. Some developers (early adopters of Brave) are even publicly turning away from browser lion-headed.
However, the navigator lived until then a beautiful success story. It had indeed gone from 5 million users in 2019 to more than 50 million in 2022! The project had so far shown exponential growth. Data that foreshadowed the best, in a particularly competitive ecosystem. Carving out a place alongside Microsoft (Bing) and Google Chrome indeed requires rapid growth and aggressive development. On the strength of this performance, Brave published monthly figures for the number of its users. But since 2022 the curve stagnates desperately, even plunging in some months. The time is over for euphoria for Brendan Eich. The decline in users confirms this observation: today, holding BAT seems to have little interest, apart from pure speculation.
BAT, a disappointing crypto
The price of the Basic Attention Token (BAT) at an all-time low
When is the time when each ad received earned 0.1 BAT? From now on, it is necessary to count 0.002 BAT per pub. To make matters worse, the price of BAT is experiencing a long descent into the abyss. With a net loss of 50% in 1 year, the BAT tumbles inexorably outside the top 100. Yet it was firmly established there since the beginning of its existence. It had notably risen to $1.60 on November 29, 2021, in the midst of a bullrun. A level that seems far away today. Unless a possible bull market could breathe new life into the project, finally allowing BAT to become the cornerstone of a new web 3.0 economy? This is obviously what everyone hopes for. holders of Basic Attention Token.
Brave, BAT, Basic attention token: flawed marketing
In addition to this difficult context, Brave suffers from its marketing wanderings. At first glance, the Brave logo is attractive: an impassive lion, which inspires confidence and serenity in the jungle that is the web. The most critical will point out its resemblance to that’s why I wrote to you of the king of the mattress. However, the problem is not there. In fact, Brave seems to have several logos, like this triangle which is the emblem of the BAT cryptocurrency, supposed to represent the web 3.0 economy. Far from being a graphic detail, these strange choices are detrimental to the project, which is difficult to identify.
Increasingly tough web 3.0 competition
Microsoft might not be the first name that comes to mind when it comes to blockchain. Still, the company wants to experience it through its browser edge. The American giant recently announced that it was considering a crypto wallet compatible with its product Others, such as Opera and its crypto-browser, are also in the running. All these companies are therefore seeking to compete with Brave in the web 3.0 race. An additional threat to the ambitious project of the founder of Firefox.
In addition to the well-known behemoths, other small browsers are getting into the web 3.0 race. One of the most interesting is undoubtedly Center, a project that already works with its own blockchain. Unlike Brave, the browser manages to be decentralized by default, from the start, with a token used and actually traded within the Cosmos (ATOM) ecosystem.
Today, the project seems to be lost between several risky developments: brave search, brave wallet, VPN… enough to disconcert users, who would like to be able to count on a solid base, rather than seeing the functionalities multiply.
A navigator far from being buried
Despite everything, Brave remains very effective in blocking trackers from websites. In particular, it allows you to use Tor, the anonymous computer network, very easily. In addition, today, web browsers tend to replace traditional operating systems. Brave is therefore the perfect gateway to the adoption of cryptocurrencies than integrating a wallet directly into a browser. By actively working on web-based payments, Brave could drive cryptocurrency adoption if it succeeds.
Today, Brave remains at the forefront of next-generation navigation by guaranteeing respect for the privacy of its users. Its main mission accomplished, the browser is now struggling to make its token a really useful cryptocurrency for web 3.0.
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