If you already have a custodial account—like an Uphold, Gemini, or bitFlyer account—connected to your Brave Rewards profile, then no action is required. The Brave Rewards experience you know and love will continue as you currently know it.
Existing unverified/non-connected users
If you don’t yet have a custodial account connected to your Brave Rewards profile and you’re in acountry that’s supported by one of our custodial partners for connecting to Brave Rewards, we encourage you to connect one as soon as you can. This will ensure that any vBAT balance you have as an unverified user will be transferred to your custodial account as BAT.
Important:All unverified users will eventually be transitioned over to the new “creator support only” Rewards experience once virtual BAT has been sunsetted. Any remaining vBAT balance you have as an unverified user will be lost when this transition occurs. So, we recommend you connect a custodial account or contribute your vBAT to your favorite verified creators before this happens.
Rewards experience for unverified users before being transitioned to the new “creator support only” experience
Note that if you’re an unverified/non-connected user, your “Estimated earnings” counter will be blank once you upgrade to a version of Brave that includes these changes, as unverified users will no longer be accruing vBAT for themselves, and instead helping to support creators if Brave Ads is enabled. Again, this is because you will only begin to earn once you’ve connected a custodial account to Brave Rewards.
If you’re a registeredBrave Creator, we will be removing the “balance” indicator in the Brave Creators dashboard. The balance you see in your Creators dashboard mostly keeps track of vBAT that was contributed to you but is still pending to be paid out to your custodial account, so will no longer be needed.
Updated creators dashboard without vBAT balance indicator
Note that any BAT previously paid out to your custodial account is unrelated to these changes. You will continue to be able to receive monthly Creators payouts and direct tips from users to your connected custodial account, even without the vBAT balance indicator.
Following these changes, we also have plans to redesign the overall Brave Creators experience. Here’s an early design preview of what your Brave Creators dashboard might look like in the future:
To begin earning and accruingBATfor Brave Ads, you will need to connect a custodial account to your Brave Rewards profile with upcoming version 1.48. Brave currently works with three custodial account provider partners:Gemini,Uphold, andbitFlyerin Japan. Requiring a custodial account gives us a place to send you your BAT earnings, and allows us to eliminate our centralized “virtual BAT” system (see “Sunsetting virtual BAT” below for more).
If you’d just like to support creators as part of a more private Web, you can do so without ever connecting a custodial account by opting into Brave Rewards and using the new “creator support only” experience. A share of the ad revenue will be earmarked for creators and distributed by Brave as part of the monthly payout toverified creators. If you want to give more, connecting a custodial account will allow you to use BAT you’ve purchased elsewhere to support creators in the Brave Rewards ecosystem, and will also unlock the Tips feature.
The new “creator support only” Rewards experience without a connected custodial account
What it looks like when you start to connect a custodial account
Sunsetting virtual BAT
After these changes to Brave Rewards in 1.48.x, we will also be sunsetting our centralized “virtual BAT” (“vBAT”) system, used primarily for unverified users.
What is vBAT?
When you use Brave Rewards without a custodial account connected, the earnings you accrue are in something called “vBAT” (virtual BAT). vBAT isn’t BAT on the blockchain; instead, it’s a centralized point system backed by aChaumian blind signature“ecash” scheme. These points can be contributed to creators or redeemed for BAT if and when you connect a custodial account.
For example, let’s say you are an unverified user and have “5 BAT” in your Brave Rewards balance after claiming your Brave Ads earnings. That “5 BAT” is actually vBAT, stored as cryptographically signed certificates on your device. When you “verify” your Brave Rewards profile by connecting a custodial account, your device submits those 5 vBAT certificates to our servers. From there, our servers utilize the APIs of our licensed custodial partners to deposit 5 BAT into your custodial account.
When is vBAT going away?
At theearliest,vBAT will go away sometime in April 2023. However, we want to ensure users have time to adjust to this change, so we will share more exact dates soon. With 1.48.x, existing users without a custodial account connected will receive a final vBAT payout for any February earnings in March.
Once the sunset deadline for vBAT is reached, vBAT will no longer be considered valid, and will be removed from the Brave Rewards experience. This means that even if you’re on an old version of Brave that still shows a vBAT balance, that vBAT can no longer be redeemed after the deadline.
As the vBAT sunset deadline draws nearer, unverified/non-connected users will see messages with more information and a specific date:
vBAT deadline messaging for users without a connected custodial account
Users in unsupported regions
Although our goal is to maximize the number ofsupported countries for connecting a custodial account to Brave Rewardsbefore sunsetting vBAT, the unfortunate reality is that there will still be some countries without an available custodial option. For example, Germany is currently not serviced by any of our custodial partners, and will likely not become supported before the vBAT sunset deadline. In other cases, some serviced regions are impossible for us or our custodial partners to support due to unsustainable economics. You can find alist of these unserviced or unsupported countries here.
If you’re in an unsupported country, you will still have the option to contribute your vBAT balances to verified creators you’d like to support, and will see messages like this:
vBAT deadline messaging for users in regions with no available custodial option
We understand that this may be frustrating for users in unsupported regions, and we apologize for these circumstances. We will continue to work with both existing and potential new custodial partners to maximize regional support for Brave Rewards as feasible.
Why is vBAT being removed?
First, vBAT was never intended to serve as a long-term store of BAT. A core assumption in our early Brave Ads abuse modeling was that vBAT would expire in order to prevent bad actors from accumulating funds across a large number of profiles, then simply waiting for an illicit avenue to open up to drain these funds out of the system. Although vBAT was originally planned to have a rolling expiry, we instead delayed it as long as possible to minimize the impact on users.
Second, because vBAT is stored locally on users’ devices after it is issued, it is impossible to tell whether some vBAT has been lost to a discarded device, abandoned upon Brave uninstall, or lost due to profile deletion, undermining the possibility of transparent and accurate accounting within the platform.
Now, with the removal of the legacy unverified user state and the introduction of the new “creator support only” experience, vBAT is no longer necessary. Removing the centralized vBAT system will allow us to focus our efforts on building a more transparent and decentralized future for Brave Rewards.
Decentralization after vBAT
We’ve already shared details about our research on decentralizing the Brave Ads system in Brave Rewards through initiatives likeTHEMIS. Eliminating our centralized vBAT system represents another step in this direction. For example, in place of vBAT contributions accounted for in our centralized vBAT system, users will, in the future, be able to send on-chain BAT directly from their self-custody Brave Wallet (or other Web3 wallets, such as MetaMask) to creators’ Web3 addresses, including Ethereum, Solana, and others. We’d also like to allow users to purchase products—such asBrave Firewall + VPN,Brave Talk Premium, etc.—with on-chain BAT.
In a similar vein, many users have asked whether—instead of having to connect a custodial account—it will be possible to connect Brave Wallet directly to Brave Rewards, and receive BAT payouts directly to one’s Brave Wallet addresses. This is a future we’d welcome and are continuing to explore. However, in order to comply with current financial regulations (such as FinCEN and OFAC requirements, or equivalent regulators outside the United States), payouts at this time must first go through a regulated custodian.
Note that once you receive BAT into your custodial account, you can always withdraw it on-chain to your Brave Wallet. In the future, we plan to bring Brave Rewards and Brave Wallet closer together to form a more unified user experience. More details to come.
Centralization has helped onboard
billions of people to the World Wide Web and created the stable, robust
infrastructure on which it lives. At the same time, a handful of
centralized entities have a stronghold on large swathes of the World
Wide Web, unilaterally deciding what should and should not be allowed.
Web3
is the answer to this dilemma. Instead of a Web monopolized by large
technology companies, Web3 embraces decentralization and is being built,
operated, and owned by its users. Web3 puts power in the hands of
individuals rather than corporations.
Before we talk about Web3, let's explore how we got here.
The early Web
Most
people think of the Web as a continuous pillar of modern life—it was
invented and has just existed since. However, the Web most of us know
today is quite different from originally imagined. To understand this
better, it's helpful to break the Web's short history into loose
periods—Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Web 1.0: Read-Only (1990-2004)
In
1989, at CERN, Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee was busy developing the
protocols that would become the World Wide Web. His idea? To create
open, decentralized protocols that allowed information-sharing from
anywhere on Earth.
The first
inception of Berners-Lee's creation, now known as 'Web 1.0', occurred
roughly between 1990 to 2004. Web 1.0 was mainly static websites owned
by companies, and there was close to zero interaction between users -
individuals seldom produced content - leading to it being known as the
read-only web.
The
Web 2.0 period began in 2004 with the emergence of social media
platforms. Instead of a read-only, the web evolved to be read-write.
Instead of companies providing content to users, they also began to
provide platforms to share user-generated content and engage in
user-to-user interactions. As more people came online, a handful of top
companies began to control a disproportionate amount of the traffic and
value generated on the web. Web 2.0 also birthed the advertising-driven
revenue model. While users could create content, they didn't own it or
benefit from its monetization.
The premise of 'Web 3.0' was coined by Ethereum
co-founder Gavin Wood shortly after Ethereum launched in 2014. Gavin
put into words a solution for a problem that many early crypto adopters
felt: the Web required too much trust. That is, most of the Web that
people know and use today relies on trusting a handful of private
companies to act in the public's best interests.
Web3
has become a catch-all term for the vision of a new, better internet.
At its core, Web3 uses blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs to give
power back to the users in the form of ownership. A 2020 post on Twitter(opens in a new tab)↗ said it best: Web1 was read-only, Web2 is read-write, Web3 will be read-write-own.
Core ideas of Web3
Although it's challenging to provide a rigid definition of what Web3 is, a few core principles guide its creation.
Web3 is decentralized:
instead of large swathes of the internet controlled and owned by
centralized entities, ownership gets distributed amongst its builders
and users.
Web3 is permissionless: everyone has equal access to participate in Web3, and no one gets excluded.
Web3 has native payments:
it uses cryptocurrency for spending and sending money online instead of
relying on the outdated infrastructure of banks and payment processors.
Web3 is trustless: it operates using incentives and economic mechanisms instead of relying on trusted third-parties.
Why is Web3 important?
Although
Web3's killer features aren't isolated and don't fit into neat
categories, for simplicity we've tried to separate them to make them
easier to understand.
Ownership
Web3
gives you ownership of your digital assets in an unprecedented way. For
example, say you're playing a web2 game. If you purchase an in-game
item, it is tied directly to your account. If the game creators delete
your account, you will lose these items. Or, if you stop playing the
game, you lose the value you invested into your in-game items.
Web3 allows for direct ownership through non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
No one, not even the game's creators, has the power to take away your
ownership. And, if you stop playing, you can sell or trade your in-game
items on open markets and recoup their value.
