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Blockchain LabVENTURE STUDIO

whitepaperStorage and networks2018

Basic Attention Token: Blockchain Based Digital Advertising

Basic Attention Token. Brave Software.

Brave's 2018 paper for an advertising unit that pays publishers and users from a measured attention event inside the browser, rather than from a chain of third-party trackers. The browser is load-bearing. The token is the unit of account in the paper's payment flow.

The problem the paper names

Web advertising in the paper's account is inefficient because intermediaries sit between the advertiser and the person, and because tracking is the measurement tool. Brave proposes that the browser, which already knows the page is on screen, can be the meter.

What the design proposes

  • Users, publishers and advertisers are the three roles.
  • Attention is measured locally. The paper's privacy claim depends on that locality.
  • Payments are batched. The chain is not asked to settle every impression.

How the mechanism is specified

  • The browser is the trusted measurer in the design. A user who does not run that client is not inside the mechanism.
  • Fraud control — fake attention — is acknowledged as the adversary. A token does not define it away.
  • The paper is a product design tied to Brave. It is not a general standard for all browsers.

What this page does not treat as proven

  • Local measurement is only private if the client behaves as specified.
  • An attention metric is a product choice. It is not a scientific unit, and the paper should not be cited as if it were.
  • We do not describe token markets or user income.

Why a venture studio still reads it

The relevant studio question is who holds the meter. BAT's answer is the user's client, with settlement batched. A venture that meters attention on its own server and then says 'blockchain advertising' has not adopted the paper.

This is Blockchain Lab's reading of a public design paper. It is not the paper, not a copy of it, and not an offer of tokens, equity, custody or a partnership. Later network behaviour can diverge from the text. Nothing here is investment, legal or technical advice.