Crypto Adoption in Media: Washington Post Example

The Brave browser and its Basic Attention Token (BAT) just added the Washington Post to its list of verified publishers which includes The Guardian, VICE and a number of YouTube channels according to an original Reddit post.

The news was hailed as a huge step forward in terms of crypto adoption by the community. After all, the Washington Post is one of the largest media outlets in the United States. Last September, the publisher had 2 million print readers per week, 95 million unique website visitors per month nationwide and another 22 million international visitors, according to the website of the Washington Post.

Brave is a free and open-source web browser that claims to block website trackers and remove intrusive Internet advertisements, as well as improving online privacy by sharing less data with advertising customers. Brave attempts to streamline the process of advertising by connecting advertisers and publishers directly, cutting out middlemen and third party partners.

With Brave, users can hide ads from any website they visit on the browser. However, they can also disable this ad-blocking feature and earn a portion of advertising revenue for every ad they interact with – effectively getting paid for their attention – in BAT tokens. Users can then spend these tokens for services, promotions and the like on participating sites, or they can donate them directly to publishers they especially appreciate if they’re feeling generous.

Currently, only the Brave Browser supports BAT, but the team has already voiced their wish for expansion into other browsers. Such an expansion could be seen as proof that it works, so BAT could attract more interest of online publishers.