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Basic Attention Token Price Analysis – Brave Browser continues to attract active users

Basic Attention Token (BAT) is an Ethereum (ETH) based ERC-20 token, designed to be exchanged between publishers, advertisers, and users.

Brendan Eich, founder, and CEO of BAT, is also the creator of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox. The token is designed to put a value on user attention. The BAT market cap currently stands at US$243 million with US$44 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours.


Watch a summary of this analysis on YouTube

The project encompasses an open-source, decentralized ad exchange platform, designed to address fraud and opaqueness in digital advertising. The BAT ecosystem also includes Brave, an open-source, privacy-centered browser designed to block trackers and malware. The Brave browser decreases page load times by blocking ads, while enabling micropayments between publishers and content creators, and provides an alternative to ad-based revenue streams.

When a user opts into Brave Rewards they start seeing Brave Ads and accumulate BAT, which they can claim on a monthly basis via the integrated wallet. Users can customize how many ads they’d like to see, 1 to 5 per hour, or choose not to see any ads.

Brave Ads don’t replace current web page ads, they are separate and uniquely different. Users see them as offers in the form of notifications. When users click to engage with these notifications, they’re presented with a full-page ad in a new ad tab of the Brave browser. Because ad matching happens directly on the user’s device, the user’s data is never sent to anyone, including Brave.

Users can donate the BAT earned from viewing Brave Ads to their favorite websites, YouTube creators, or Twitch streamers. Soon they will also be able to redeem BAT for real-world rewards, such as hotel vouchers and gift certificates via TAP Network’s 250,000 brand partners.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (1)

Creators and publishers do not need to use Brave to collect BAT payments but can complete the verification process on Uphold, a payment processor, where audience contributions are kept in escrow. BAT can also be automatically converted to fiat currencies and transferred to the creator’s bank account. Earlier this year, Brave announced that users will soon be able to directly withdraw BAT from the browser, after verifying with Uphold.

Brave released v1.0 in mid-November and reported 12 million active users in March. In comparison, as of November 2016, Google’s Chrome browser reported two billion installs. However, in repeated head-to-head testing, Brave had the quickest load times amongst competitors Chrome and Firefox.

The Brave platform also has now registered over 620,000 registered publishers listed to collect BAT funds from Brave users on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Reddit, Vimeo, Github, SoundCloud, and other websites. Over 50% of all registered publishers originate from Youtube and all categories have seen continued growth over the past year.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (2)

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (3)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (4)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (5)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (6)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (7)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (8)
Source: batgrowth

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (9)
Source: batgrowth

Early on, Brave began collecting BAT donations for unverified publishers without their knowledge. YouTuber Tom Scott was angry to learn the platform was collecting donations on his behalf and called for all BAT to be refunded, which is impossible as the donations are anonymous. Scott also sent Brave a formal right-to-be-forgotten request under GDPR guidelines.

Eich responded by pointing to the BAT terms of service which acknowledges that funds donated to an unverified publisher are held for no less than 90 days before being sent to BAT’s user growth pool. Eich further states that no BAT has ever been clawed back thus far for this reason.

Additionally, there remains no opt-in option for publishers as, according to Eich, the feature would kill user-driven growth. Brave has changed the rewards system to make it clear which creators haven’t yet joined through the verification process and has no images of unverified creators in the platforms tipping panel.

There was further controversy last year, regarding Brave’s ability to remotely inject headers in HTTP requests. Eich responded on Reddit by acknowledging that the custom HTTP headers are sent to Brave partners, with fixed header values. He added that this does not represent a privacy backdoor and that there is no tracking hazard.

In May 2019, Dr. Johnny Ryan, Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave, testified at the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Understanding the Digital Advertising Ecosystem and the Impact of Data Privacy and Competition Policy.” Ryan echoed Brave’s commitment to user privacy.

Brave offers private Tor browsing on desktop and DuckDuckGo for private mobile tabs, as well as an integrated Ethereum (ETH) browser wallet, MetaMask. Brave is also the default web browser for the HTC Exodus1 blockchain phone.

The Brave platform has completed three rounds of seed funding; a November 2015 raise of US$2.5 million, an August 2016 raise of US$4.5 million, and a January 2017 raise of an undisclosed amount. Notable investors include Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital. According to a May 2019 CoinDesk article, Brave is looking to raise another US$30–US$50 million at a valuation of US$133 million.

The BAT token ICO occurred in May 2017 raising over 156,000 ETH, or US$35 million at that time, in 30 seconds from 130 participants. Each of the one billion ERC20 tokens available for the crowdsale was sold at a price of US$0.036. According to wallet data, BAT spent 6,000 and 7,000 ETH in May and June 2019 (shown below), with no remaining ETH in their ICO wallet. The BAT team holds 500 million tokens and, according to the team, the total supply of BAT will never exceed 1.5 billion tokens.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (10)
Source: sanbase

On the network, the number of BAT transactions per day (line, chart below) have increased to a multi-month high of 6,250, nearly surpassing the all-time high of 7,300 in May 2019. Transactions on the network spike once a month when BAT rewards are distributed to creators. Overall, this metric has increased considerably since September 2019.

Average transaction values (fill, chart below) have largely remained below US$4,000 since January 2019. Average transaction values tend to spike with any price spike of the token and can be inversely related to transactions per day, as micropayment utility for the token increases.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (11)
Source: CoinMetrics

The 30-day Kalichkin network value to estimated on-chain daily transactions (NVT) ratio (line, chart below) dropped below 60 over the past few weeks. This metric has remained well below historic levels, suggesting increased token utility since mid-2018. A clear downtrend in NVT is bullish and suggests the coin is undervalued based on its economic activity and utility, whereas an uptrend should be considered bearish. Inflection points in NVT can be leading indicators of price reversal.

Monthly active addresses (MAA) have recently increased to 2,500, matching the multi-month high in May 2019 (fill, chart below). A sustained increase in MAA, similar to rising transaction per day metrics, shows increasing utility for the chain, as opposed to a spike in MAA which largely suggests short-term speculative demand. Active and unique addresses are important to consider when determining the fundamental value of the network using Metcalfe’s law.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (12)
Source: CoinMetrics

Turning to developer activity, the BAT project has 159 repos on Github. The Brave core repo has had over 3,500 commits over the past year from 58 developers (top chart, shown below). The Brave browser repo also has 381 commits over the past year from 52 developers (bottom chart, shown below). The most recent updates have included; improved privacy integration, Wayback time machine access, and opt-in Brave ads

Most coins use the developer community of Github where files are saved in folders called "repositories," or "repos," and changes to these files are recorded with "commits," which save a record of what changes were made, when, and by who. Although commits represent quantity and not necessarily quality, a higher number of commits can signify higher dev activity and interest.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (13)
Source: Github – brave-core

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (14)
Source: Github – brave-browser

BAT exchange-traded volume in the past 24 hours has predominantly been led by Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) pairs on Binance, Coinbase, and OKEx.

BAT has slowly been listed on several exchanges over the past three years.

  • Bittrex – June 2017
  • Binance – November 2017
  • Huobi – December 2017
  • Bitfinex – January 2018
  • Poloniex – August 2018
  • Coinbase – November 2018
  • Binance – March 2019
  • Binance.US – October 2019
  • OKEx and Dasset – March 2020
  • Gemini – May 2020

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (15)

Worldwide Google Trends data for the term "Basic Attention Token" have slowly been increasing since January, suggesting grassroots interest in the coin. A spike in early November 2018 corresponded with the Coinbase listing. Searches also spiked near the ICO date in May and June 2017, as well as in late 2017 when all crypto-related searches broadly increased.

Spikes in Google searches often correlate with spikes in market prices. A 2015 study found a strong correlation between the Google Trends data and Bitcoin price, while a May 2017 study concluded that when the U.S. Google "Bitcoin" searches increased dramatically, the Bitcoin price dropped.

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##Technical Analysis

BAT has mainly been held to a wide but defined range since trading began in June 2017. To determine the existence or strength of any trend, Exponential Moving Averages, Volume Profile of the Visible Range, Pivot Points, Relative Strength Index, and the Ichimoku Cloud can help determine optimal entry points. Further background information on the technical analysis discussed below can be found here.

On the daily chart, the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) and 200-day EMA crossed bullish on February 10th, the first such cross since March 2019. Volume Profile of the Visible Range (VPVR, horizontal bars) shows strong support at the US$0.20 zone and strong resistance at US$0.26 and US$0.36. Yearly pivot resistance stands at US$0.26 and US$0.42. Additionally, there are no bullish or bearish divergences at this time.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (17)

Turning to the Ichimoku Cloud, four metrics are used to determine if a trend exists; the current price in relation to the Cloud, the color of the Cloud (red for bearish, green for bullish), the Tenkan (T) and Kijun (K) cross, and the Lagging Span. The best entry always occurs when most of the signals flip from bearish to bullish, or vice versa.

The status of the current Cloud metrics on the daily time frame with doubled settings (20/60/120/30) is neutral; the spot price is below the Cloud, the Cloud is bearish, the TK cross is bullish, and the Lagging Span is inside of the Cloud and above price. A long entry signal will not trigger until price is once again above the Cloud with a bullish Kumo twist.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (18)

On the BAT/BTC pair, trend metrics are leaning bearish with the spot price is below the 200-day EMA and below the Cloud. Strong VPVR support sits at the 2,000 sat zone, with overhead VPVR resistance strongest at the 5,000 sat zone. Should the 2,000 sat support zone fail, a revisit to the all-time low at 1,000 sats is likely. The trend will likely continue to be indeterminate until the spot price is above the 200-day EMA, Cloud, and key resistance zone of 3,000 sats.

Basic Attention Token Price Analysis 12 May 2020 (19)

Conclusion

The Brave Browser has continued to post strong active user numbers and an increase in publishers over the past two years across multiple new-media platforms. On-chain data, including transactions per day and active addresses, has increased substantially over the past few months, nearing all-time highs. However, a rise in active addresses may be a direct result of the increase in subsidized publishers, and not necessarily an increase in BAT holders and users. Additionally, the circulating supply of over one billion BAT tokens are likely to provide continued downward pressure until active Brave users, active addresses, and daily transaction amounts increase dramatically.

Technicals for both the BAT/USD and BAT/BTC pairs lean neutral to bearish. A clear resumption of the bullish trend will occur once the spot price is above both the 200-day EMA and daily Cloud. Upside targets for BAT/USD sit at US$0.26 and US$0.36. Key resistance for BAT/BTC sits at 3,000 sats with a potential upside of 5,000 sats once bullish momentum kicks into gear.


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