Basic Attention

Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a cryptocurrency launched in 2017. It functions as the native utility token of an open-source, decentralized ad exchange that attempts to restructure how digital attention is priced, measured, and compensated.

The protocol directly attacks a fractured advertising supply chain polluted by opaque intermediaries, bot fraud, and user surveillance. Advertisers fund campaigns using BAT, publishers receive BAT based on verified user engagement, and the end user—the actual commodity—gets a quantifiable slice of the value their attention generates. No third-party ad server extracts an unaccountable toll in the middle.

The token operates on the Ethereum network. Because it was purpose-built to integrate with a privacy-first browsing environment, its entire transaction logic lives on-chain, removing settlement ambiguity between the party that pays for an impression and the party that hosts it.

BAT launched as a standard ERC-20 asset, securing immediate compatibility with Ethereum’s developer infrastructure, and later expanded across multiple execution environments. Contract addresses exist on Solana, Avalanche, Polygon, and the Gnosis Chain, where the same fungible asset settles cross-ecosystem ad payments. The multi-chain footprint reflects a design that treats the token as a portable unit of account for attention rather than a single-network instrument.

Brendan Eich, the inventor of JavaScript and a co-founder of Mozilla, conceived the project alongside lead developer and Brave co-founder Brian Bondy, with senior engineer Scott Locklin rounding out the early technical core. The team conducted an initial coin offering on May 31, 2017, raising roughly $35 million in under thirty seconds. That genesis moment tied BAT permanently to the Brave browser, an open-source application engineered to block trackers and malware by default while simultaneously building a local attention ledger.

The broader mission involves dismantling the surveillance machinery that powers contemporary digital advertising. By relocating ad matching and attention measurement entirely onto the user’s device, the architecture replaces server-side profiling with local machine learning algorithms. A user’s browsing intent and engagement history never leave their own hardware, which effectively severs the pipeline that funnels behavioral data into opaque programmatic exchanges.

Mechanically, the token serves as the exclusive settlement unit inside Brave’s BAT Ads system. An advertiser procures BAT to initiate a campaign; the browser matches that campaign to local user profiles without exposing those profiles externally; a publisher delivering the content earns BAT correlating to verified attention seconds. Meanwhile, users who opt into privacy-preserving advertisements receive a fraction of the gross campaign spend as a direct reward, deposited into an integrated wallet native to the browser.

Specific holding patterns align with each role. Advertisers must hold or periodically acquire BAT to pay for inventory, converting fiat budgets into token balances that clear campaign invoices. Website owners and content creators custody the token as they accumulate publisher revenue, which they can later convert or hold. Users withdraw earned BAT from the browser’s custodial wallet to external addresses for saving, swapping, or transferring to self-custody, turning passive attention into a withdrawable asset.

Basic Attention Token has a maximum supply of 1,500,000,000 tokens. Currently, 1,495,724,656.95 are in circulation. With a market capitalization of $158,488,685, Basic Attention Token ranks #211 among all cryptocurrencies.