Skip to main content

Brave uses an initial coin offering to secure $35 million for ad-free browser

brave browser secures 35 million in funding through initial coin offering notebook
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The browser wars continue unabated, with Google’s Chrome dominating the desktop, Mozilla Firefox maintaining a strong second place, and Microsoft Internet Explorer declining toward oblivion. Battling it out for relevancy are Microsoft’s new Edge browser and Apple’s Safari, with the Opera browser falling into the “Other” category.

That’s not stopping others from jumping into the fray, no matter how long the odds might appear. As a case in point, Mozilla’s former CEO and Javascript creator Brendan Eich is working to launch yet another browser, Brave, and he secured $35 million in new funding to help out with the effort.

Recommended Videos

As TechCrunch reports, it is not just the amount of funding itself that is interesting, however,  it is also the method Eich used to raise the money. Specifically, he embarked on an initial coin offering (ICO), meaning a fundraiser that operated by selling cryptocurrency. In Brave’s case, that meant creating its own version of coin, the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and then selling a billion units.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Taken together, the billion BAT are worth more than $35 million and there is another 500 million BAT squirreled away for growth and “BAT development.” The company does not have any plans current to sell any additional BAT.

Eich hopes to use the funding to help make internet advertising more attractive to advertisers, publishers, and users, by using blockchain technology to make the process more efficient. The end result will be a browser that is aimed at blocking most ads while nevertheless allowing publishers to make money from advertising. Essentially, the Brave browser lets users choose to block ads completely, allow privacy-respecting ads to get through, and enable ads that contribute directly to a site.

The benefit will be a browser that is significantly faster and also safer by eliminating “malvertising,” or harmful advertising, while nevertheless being better at allowing publishers to make money and stay in business. While Brave will face an uphill battle in the browser market, the injection of $35 million through its recent ICO along with the promise of combatting the scourge of disruptive web ads should certainly help it take on the industry’s current leaders.

Mark Coppock
Mark Coppock is a Freelance Writer at Digital Trends covering primarily laptop and other computing technologies. He has…
This is the GPU I’m most excited for in 2025 — and it’s not by Nvidia
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card.

The next few months will completely redefine every ranking of the best graphics cards. With Nvidia's RTX 50-series and AMD's RDNA 4 most likely launching in January -- and even Intel possibly expanding its Battlemage lineup -- there's a lot to look forward to.

But as for me, I already know which GPU I'm most excited about. And no, it's not Nvidia's rumored almighty RTX 5090. The GPU I'm looking forward to is AMD's upcoming flagship, which will presumably be the RX 8800 XT (or perhaps the RX 9070 XT). Below, I'll tell you why I think this GPU is going to be so important not just for AMD but also for the entire graphics card market.
Setting the pace

Read more
Google Street View camera captures highly suspicious act, leading to arrests
The Google Street View image showing someone loading a large bundle into the trunk of a car.

Imagery from Google’s Street View has reportedly helped to solve a murder case in northern Spain.

Street View is the online tool that lets you view 360-degree imagery captured by cameras mounted on Google’s Street View cars that travel the world.

Read more
AMD’s RDNA 4 may surprise us in more ways than one
AMD RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards.

Thanks to all the leaks, I thought I knew what to expect with AMD's upcoming RDNA 4. It turns out I may have been wrong on more than one account.

The latest leaks reveal that AMD's upcoming best graphics card may not be called the RX 8800 XT, as most leakers predicted, but will instead be referred to as the  RX 9070 XT. In addition, the first leaked benchmark of the GPU gives us a glimpse into the kind of performance we can expect, which could turn out to be a bit of a letdown.

Read more