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DAPP-FUNDAMENTALSBAT is not Brave, an evaluation of the Basic Attention Token (self.ethtrader)

submitted by MusaTheRedGuardretail af

EDIT: Posted on medium as well, better formatting

BAT is not Brave An evaluation of the Basic Attention Token

Overview

The Brave browser is one of the few success stories of this crypto market cycle. The ad blocking, wallet enabled browser has only gotten better and better as time passes and it's now almost up to feature parity with major players like Chrome and Firefox.

Prominent influencers such as angel investor Naval Ravikant claim to use it as their primary browser.

A key part of the Brave ecosystem is its native token, the Basic Attention Token(BAT).

High Expectations

According to the BAT whitepaper, BAT is meant to be used as a payment /rev share system in which users and publishers get BAT from an advertiser after they view an ad.

Visual Representation from the whitepaper

Brave envisions a world in which users use BAT to pay for all kinds of digital services including "high resolution photos, data services, or publisher applications".

Harsh Reality Settles in

After reviewing BAT's token model, I have come to a few conclusions:

1) General crypto mania coupled with unbridled enthusiasm about the Brave browser has led to wildly inflated valuations of BAT.

2) Even in the best case scenario, BAT accrues minimal value long term.

3) Even though the price of BAT has fallen significantly(86% since its all time high) during the bear market, it is still significantly overvalued compared to other payment only tokens.

Because of this, I started filling a long term short position in BAT. The purpose of this writing is to explain how I got to these conclusions.

A Favourable Retail Short

Investors get a lot more rational during a bear market. They take a harder look at their portfolios and exit losing positions.

For the first time, it is possible for retail crypto investors to bring rational price discovery to ERC20 tokens like BAT by shorting them.

This is due to the availability of ERC20 token borrowing on Compound Finance and Dharma, both permissionless decentralized lending and borrowing protocols. These protocols have risks associated with them so use them wisely.

The rest of this writing will explain the reasoning behind the short.

Token Analysis

BAT's Token Economics

BAT is a payment only cryptocurrency. The token economics of payment only tokens all but guarantee they cannot accrue value long term. Much has been written about these payment tokens and the velocity problem.

Here's the short version: Given the choice, any user of a service would want to pay for that service in the currency they are comfortable with. I.e People taking loans on Ethereum would prefer to pay for them in ETH or DAI.

Payment only tokens force potential users to pay for services in the payment token. This is huge source of friction and represents an enormous hindrance to adoption. Potential users will simply turn to the competition if friction is high.

Even users who persevere through this horrible UX will immediately exchange this token for a currency that they actually value. If there's no incentive to continue to hold this money, users will exchange it as fast as possible causing downward price pressure.

Take note of the economic forces at play here:

1) Brave, the service company, wants to reduce friction, improve UX and keep users from switching to another browser.

2) Brave is incentivized to remove source of friction(the token) altogether or switch to a currency users actually want to use(such as ETH/DAI).

3) Brave users do not want to hold the token so they sell it immediately, causing downward selling pressure.

Other payment only tokens feeling the pain

Other payment tokens are plagued by this issue. For example, let's look at Quantstamp, a smart contract auditing company. They did an ICO with their native token, QSP.

QSP is a payment only token used by customers to pay for audits. Turns out Quantstamp had been accepting USD or ETH as payment for audits instead of QSP. Its community was livid.

Quantstamp put out a statement, saying:

"While Quantstamp has accepted QSP, USD, and Ether, the latter two are only accepted for our current offerings and out of client and customer necessity, as not everyone is currently capable of acquiring and using our token,"

Take note of the wording here.

Potential Quantstamp customers did not want to acquire their token to pay for services and they likely lost customers to competitors.

Brave's customers, advertisers, will not want to acquire BAT to pay for services.

Quantstamp faced a choice and pragmatically chose their customers over token holders. I expect Brave to do the same.

QSP is worth $0.015 at the time of this writing(12/12/2018). The circulating supply of QSP is ~600K, almost half of BAT's.

Yet BAT is currently trading at 10 times the value of QSP.

Macro Environment

The regulatory environment in the US has become increasingly hostile to ICO issuers. The SEC has recently taken action against 2 ICO issuers for failing to register as securities offerings and they've shown no sign off slowing down.

This hostile regulatory environment is a mine field for ICO issuers like Brave.

On the one hand, they can claim their ICO token is a payment only token, more like airline miles or credits than a security. But by that definition, these "airline mile tokens" are inherently not valuable.

Again, ICO issuers face a choice, this time between token holders and regulators.

Conclusion

Brave is an innovative product that creates value for their users. Malicious and intrusive ads are a real pain point for users and Brave is solving that problem with smart ad blocking.

BAT, on the other hand, is simply a fund raising tool that Brave used during the speculative bubble of 2017.

As the market matures and becomes more rational, payment only tokens like BAT will go to 0.

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[–]spritemitleanRedditor for 7 months. 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Do a real valuation based on numbers and calculations next time you claim something is overvalued.

[–]Aumaiso82 - 3 years account age. 150 - 300 comment karma. 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Your post is for your purpose: shorting BAT

[–]applebeetunaRedditor for 4 months. 6 points7 points  (0 children)

While agreed that BAT's actual value proposition being low and full of unnecessary friction, shorting it in a volatile, speculative market based on "fundamentals" is way too risky

[–]investorpatrick 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Comprehensive, cleary energy has gone into this post.

I would encourage you to read scott locklins recent submission regarding token velocity economics. I think you would find it interesting due to the rebuking of recent vitalik buterin assertions.

https://basicattentiontoken.org/token-economics-considering-token-velocity/

[–]DexVitalityGentleman 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nice article thanks for sharing this.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's an interesting idea, but do we have any empirical evidence token velocity actually works as argued in the crypto space?

[–]SammyBlackstarWARNING: 8 - 9 years account age. 0 - 57 comment karma. 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I have worked in adtech for 8 years and am familiar with every ad business model websites/apps use to monetize. Brave really is the next stage that is needed to cleanse the internet of the hundreds of scammy ad networks. I don't agree with your points.

I would pay for ads with BAT. I would monetize and hold BAT. I would promote BAT to mobile users.

But there is a REAL threat to the entire Brave model.

Malicious advertisers.

As Brave starts accepting advertisers don't be surprised if crypto malware makes it through the cracks where someome sets up an ecommerce campaign and suddenly the campaign redirects to crypto jacking software.

Ad the end of the day a human has to do compliance and corporations usually hire for cheap in this regard because it's shit work. The staff is usually untrained and malicious campaigns make it through with social engineering.

Thoughts?

[–]woppityy1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Malicious advertisers.

Brave is very aware of this risk. It's why they are not going to be far more selective about ad's than traditional networks. Brave isn't targeting high volume extremely low hit ads, they will be selling low volume, high quality, high hit rate ads.

[–]SammyBlackstarWARNING: 8 - 9 years account age. 0 - 57 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Low Volume = Low Money = Can't Pay Staff

[–]StrosPartisanRedditor for 5 months. 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Brave is expected to pass some important milestones early in 2019...short it at your own risk.

[–]TidyGate1Redditor for 11 months. 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you are shorting, what do you think the intrinsic value of BAT is? And how’d you calculate it? Look into your crystal ball

[–]noner_boner 12 points13 points  (28 children)

BAT is fine. Content providers / creators simply need to learn that it's just as important to say "Remember to BAT me by clicking XYZ..." as it is to say "Click like or subscribe." The company has money, it just needs a concentrated awareness campaign about this exact concept. Reddit is actually a great place for this, as content creators can generally use it as a testing ground while remaining anonymous, gather ideas, and then eventually take them online to Youtube etc.

The ecosystem will grow over time, and the browser is an example of what a proper blockchain service can do. I'm in marketing and I'd gladly be paid in BAT, despite its low value. If I'm getting paid in BAT instead of cash for a video, for instance, I'm a) internally considering the value of the contract in dollars and b) likely to be doing so because I want to quickly exchange it for ETH or BTC. However if the BAT model ends up a success then I won't sell it, and there's the crux of it: critical mass must be reached before that will be the case.

It's the same struggle for every blockchain service. You've got a few users who are veterans of the crypto ecosystem and a product that works well in theory, but you also have to make people relearn how to interact on the internet. BAT is like a new social contract, and that's not something that can be solved with money or buzzwords (and I'm not implying anything negative about the company behind Brave/BAT).

Edit: Another thing. Keep in mind how uphill of a battle this is for BAT. Most of the biggest platforms for content like Facebook (and therefore Instagram etc.) wouldn't likely incorporate a BAT button unless they were given the keys to the company (literally).

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] -1 points0 points  (27 children)

Say you were running a large company. Some ad tech startup pitches you and you actually like the idea. But when you go to pay them, they force you to pay in their token.

Honest question, would you ever do that?

[–]dragespirBurrito 11 points12 points  (5 children)

BAT+Brave doesn't necessarily work like that. Consider advertisers and users being behind 2 sides of the same wall that is BAT/Brave.

For an advertiser, Brave simply goes to them and says, "Hey, we got a platform with millions of users and growing. We have near perfect ad-targeting, which also respects user privacy. Want to advertise with us?" If they say, "Yeah sure!" Then they pay for their ads, and it's a done deal. As far as inconvenience to the advertiser goes, it's as much as paying for an ad campaign on any ad network.

For users, Brave's proposition is that they can earn BAT by browsing and consenting to the browser taking their info and doing client-side ad matching. (This means no info leaves their computer and so they are not uniquely identifiable). How much BAT do they get? 70% of whatever the advertiser paid for the advertisement this user is viewing. Because when the advertisers bought the advertisement, Brave went around and took 70% of what they paid to market-buy BAT to be able to pay users who are browsing on Brave.

So you see, advertisers don't ever have to deal with buying tokens and worry about a fluctuating asset. From their perspective, advertising on Brave is simply the same as advertising anywhere on an emerging platform. But for users, it's a completely different experience being compensated for their attention while having their privacy respected.

So your initial statement - "But when you go to pay them, they force you to pay in their token." is somewhat true, but a lot of the negative prerequisites that you have already associated with the system simply do not exist.

Hope this helps!

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 3 points4 points  (4 children)

So you see, advertisers don't ever have to deal with buying tokens and worry about a fluctuating asset

Ah I see. If that's the case, then why would BAT hold value? Make no mistake, I'm not criticizing Brave's business model. I'm criticizing BAT as an investment.

If I'm buying BAT as an investment, I want to make a return on my investment.

If BAT's only used for payment, why should it increase in value?

Let's compare and contrast with something like REP.

REP is a work token that is necessary to:

1) Create markets

2) Report on markets

3) Stake to be used during disputes.

If I'm a market creator, I have clear incentives to hold the REP token, creating reserve demand and taking REP out of the supply, therefore increasing price.

With BAT, I have no incentive to hold BAT as an advertiser or as an end user. As you noted, I'll simply exchange the token to money(USD, ETH, BTC, DAI/stablecoin) I actually value.

[–]dragespirBurrito 3 points4 points  (1 child)

As another user posted, take a read on this paper that was recently released, which should answer your question: https://basicattentiontoken.org/token-economics-considering-token-velocity/

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Everyone keeps posting this link but it doesn't address any of the core points of the argument.

Which is, Method of Exchange tokens are a huge source of friction and are a UX nightmare.

Startups searching for product market fit do not have the luxury of adding extra friction to the process.

This isn't 2017 anymore. This stuff is live and in the wild now. We are actually seeing these issues play out in real time. Users are having these problems and they are vocal about them

[–]Aumaiso82 - 3 years account age. 150 - 300 comment karma. -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

t

You simply a BAT hater!

[–]Libertymark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He is short for sure

Weirdo

[–]SleepShadow 8 points9 points  (17 children)

Advertisers just pay in dollar to Brave. Brave converts it to BAT. For someone that spend a lot of time on this post, you don't even know the basics.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 1 point2 points  (16 children)

Awesome. So why would that mean that BAT increases in value? Advertisers have no reason to hold the token. Users have no reason to hold the token.

If I'm buying BAT, I'm buying this as an investment. I want a return on this investment. Why would BAT give me a return on this investment?

[–]jeynesey1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 12 points13 points  (7 children)

TLDR: Millions of dollars of buy orders at market price, any time you have ad campaigns... significantly less of which ever gets sold back into the market.

In terms of ad spend aka buying pressure on the price, ONE PERCENT of the online ad industry is $250,000,000 per MONTH. What do you think a monthly $250,000,000 buy wall does to the price of a token?

Let's just take a very basic example of a $1,000 / $10,000 / $1m ad campaign.

That's literally a BAT buy order at market price for whatever the value of the ad campaign may be. At this point you've got 1X positive pressure on the price.

Run through how many steps that BAT has to go through to actually get sold and have any negative pressure on the price. 70% goes to whoever views the ad. 30% goes to Brave for running the infrastructure.

What % of that 70% will get cashed out? You can choose your own numbers here. I'll make up some of my own rough guestimates. Let's say 30% of people bother to cash it out (selling pressure) and 70% donate it to websites. That's my personal rough belief. That's 0.3*0.7=0.21. So from that part of the economy, level 1 if you like, for every one dollar of positive buying action you've got 21 cents of selling action.

So that means I think 70% of the 70% earned for viewing ads gets donated to sites, as a level 2 of the infrastructure. Let's say everyone gives to ~10 sites a month. That's spreading things pretty thin. What % of those websites do you think are ever going to claim the BAT and cash it out? 25%? 50%? It's my belief that a very large percentage of this donated BAT will just get lost down the back of the sofa cushions of the internet. You only even get notified as a website owner when you get to (I think) $100 worth of BAT. Even then, loads of people will miss that notification or think it's spam, or just not care.

Of the people who do notice and do care, how many are going to actually register as a verified publisher? How many of them will then either hodl or sell it, or re-gift it?

Again, just make up whatever numbers you like for all these questions but the point is that you're not getting anywhere near 1X for selling pressure. Even if you're wildly optimistic and think 50% of people will bother to claim their BAT and 50% will cash it out instead of re-gifting it, that only works out at 0.7*0.7*0.5*0.5=12.25%

So with levels 1 and 2 you've still only got 33.25% of the BAT which was purchased ever being sold. The rest is getting re-gifted, hodled or just getting lost in tiny amounts around the millions of sites on the internet. That's a 3/1 buying to selling ratio.

Even if Brave sold 100% of their 30% received from selling the ad space, you've still only got 66.33% of X. I don't personally think they'll sell all their 30% share anyway - I think they'll keep giving a lot of it away to new users.

So you consider the size of online advertising, the fact Brave already has partnerships with ad agencies and big brands, millions of users bla bla bla.... Tell me one other project that has anything like that sort of potential buying pressure on the market value of the coin / token. I don't know of any.
Tell me one other project that WILL spread those purchased tokens across literally millions of wallets, when the person receiving it doesn't even have to know they're receiving it. I don't know of any.

I'm just answering the one question you've asked above but there are many more reasons that BAT price will go up if the ecosystem works. Obviously as the price is positively affected by companies buying ads, and as the concept becomes more familiar, you get more speculators just hodling for an investment. That further decreases circulating supply (along with the spreading out of tokens through gifting), which in turn has a positive impact on price. It's basically a token burn every month.

You also have people who will just buy to donate, because some people are generous :)

Anyway, I made a spreadsheet to work out how all this affected circulating supply a while ago. You are welcome to have a play around with it if you like;https://www.betmma.tips/BATcalcs.xlsx

The funny thing is, I don't give a monkeys if people in crypto understand this or not. BAT is the first crypto that will go up in value because of people who don't care about crypto. It will go up in value because of actual usage and utility outside this little club of early adopters.

[–]maantrade 5 points6 points  (5 children)

Would tip this with bat if I could. This is exactly the same theory I've been working from. Assuming the ad system works as promised, there will be constant market demand. Selling pressure will be less than 100% due to the reasons you noted above. And at some point the speculator will work this all out too. Could all happen very fast IMO, but needs catalysts. Working ads model+mobile integration might be enough, but (and purely hope just now) but if the major partnership Brendan mentions is Twitter, well be in business.

[–]jeynesey1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Thanks for the acknowledgement. I'm 100% in BAT for the above reasons so I wouldn't worry too much about my position in terms of a tip :) I would prefer more people understood the concept and why the price will go up though, so feel free to link to the post.

The frustrating thing is that if we hit another bull run you might make more money by holding coins that literally have no value because people don't understand these sort of token economics and prefer to follow hype. I'll probably just stay all in on BAT though because predicting group mentality is kinda stressful, compared to actually investing in a proper company with a proper product.

There are plenty of catalysts coming too. For me the big one is the "website with 80 million ad block users ready to convert their users to brave" (which I think will be imgur fwiw).... Even ahead of the actual viewing ads platform being in place. I think most crypto investors need that blindingly obvious endorsement from a big company to see where this project is headed.

[–]jcabezas221 - 2 year account age. -15 - 35 comment karma. 1 point2 points  (2 children)

upping

Could you please explain more about your spreadsheet? I took a look but im still have some doubts about it.

[–]jeynesey1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yep, what do you wanna know specifically?

[–]Libertymark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great dd man

Considering real upping my bat investment

[–]Libertymark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Amen

[–]jeynesey1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, /u/MusaTheRedGuard do you not reply if someone actually answers your questions? Are you only interested in trying to back up your original post or do you want to develop your understanding?

[–]autodownvote8 - 9 years account age. 113 - 225 comment karma. 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I thought I'd noted when going through the white paper that BAT increases in value based on the number of transactions over time (pg. 33 of the white paper). So, the more payments that take place, the more the token increases in value.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I thought I'd noted when going through the white paper that BAT increases in value based on the number of transactions over time

Let's think about this critically. Why? Why would this happen?

[–]autodownvote8 - 9 years account age. 113 - 225 comment karma. 1 point2 points  (2 children)

When users tip, or ads are purchased. So with user growth...

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If i send you a Venezulean peso, does that increase the value of the Venezulean peso?

What would you do if someone gave you $100 USD worth of venezulean peso?

The rational thing to do, and what most people do is simply exchange the Pesos for a currency they value and that they can use, USD

[–]Apollo771Redditor for 9 months. 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So that's why Bitcoin goes up and down? You don't use logic very well. Supply and demand plays in huge also. Investors can buy knowing the overall supply of BAT. Having only a supply of 1.5 billion Bat, it can be assumed that if even just the Brave web browser is successful then BAT will be huge. Let alone if other projects adopt BAT.

[–]SleepShadow 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If all the best websites, YouTube creators etc work with BAT, because that will be the new way of funding their business and they will have some extra premium stuff you as reader/viewer want to have, but you need to buy it with BAT. You don't watch ads, or not enough, so you need to buy BAT to get the premium stuff. Token value rises.

[–]bguy74 3 points4 points  (0 children)

absolutely, because micropayments for ad delivery don't have transactional overhead like other forms of payments. The the ad can be delivered in the same transaction as the payment for its delivery is a massive efficiency for all parties involved.

I saw pitches for this sort of thing in the first Dot Com cycle in the late 90s and there simply was no option given the lack of a payment method, but it has been pursued consistently since 1995ish. While BAT may or may not be the one that makes it happen, blockchain is the obvious answer and I see no reason it shouldn't be tokenized.

This post here unfortunately shows essentially no understanding of the online ad marketplace. There is less friction in purchasing BAT then there is in the current mechanisms for payment , and ultimately ad-buyers go where high-value eyeballs are and to the place that has the good content. If BAT is appealing to the eyeballs (consumers) and the publishers then your concern that it won't be appealing to those who publish ads is just pointing in the wrong direction. If you've got an eyeball you want payment immediately, if you've got a web property you want payment immediately. Currently you get your payment 30 days in the rears and only after certain volumes, because the transactional overhead is too high for cash.

[–]guytitopRedditor for 9 months. 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Why don’t you read this https://basicattentiontoken.org/token-economics-considering-token-velocity/

The link you post from Milticoin has fundamentally flawed reasoning as the link above highlights.

[–]HelloBucklebellRedditor for 12 months. 7 points8 points  (11 children)

Reasonable arguments, but if Brave only ever allows content creators to pay in BAT, then it will naturally become a prime choice coin as content creators will receive it and probably use it. If content creators and consumers never transact then Brave is ultimately a failure.

​

Although overall I think you're right. The end user has no use for a hundred different tokens in their wallet...and why should they pretend to? I, too, believe that that Brave will ultimately phase out BAT and switch to ETH, BTC, Ripple, or some other coin (whichever ends up scaling best). Best case scenario would actually be the company doing a buy-out (exchange) of their own token for the equivalent of whatever the newly-accepted token is at the time.

​

Of course there is another option (most improbable): BAT moves to their own chain and figures out a way to scale it in such a way that it works really well. Because of its utility and native integration with the Brave browser (in this scenario, Brave has now gained the usership of Firefox and Chrome), and BAT becomes the crypto standard for transacting on the internet. Ripple, BTC, and the myriad others pale in comparison for actual users and transactions. BAT takes over the world.

​

​

[–]cyounessiMakerDAO Risk Team 4 points5 points  (10 children)

Reasonable arguments, but if Brave only ever allows content creators to pay in BAT, then it will naturally become a prime choice coin as content creators will receive it and probably use it. If content creators and consumers never transact then Brave is ultimately a failure.

Just imagine a simple browser extension that automatically converts your BAT into BTC/ETH/DAI as soon as you receive some.

​

Although overall I think you're right. The end user has no use for a hundred different tokens in their wallet...and why should they pretend to? I, too, believe that that Brave will ultimately phase out BAT and switch to ETH, BTC, Ripple, or some other coin (whichever ends up scaling best). Best case scenario would actually be the company doing a buy-out (exchange) of their own token for the equivalent of whatever the newly-accepted token is at the time.

Users will want to hold their wealth into the best Store of Value coins (currently BTC, ETH, and DAI).

​

Of course there is another option (most improbable): BAT moves to their own chain and figures out a way to scale it in such a way that it works really well. Because of its utility and native integration with the Brave browser (in this scenario, Brave has now gained the usership of Firefox and Chrome), and BAT becomes the crypto standard for transacting on the internet. Ripple, BTC, and the myriad others pale in comparison for actual users and transactions. BAT takes over the world.

It can't move to its own chain unless they are willing to inflate BAT to pay for mining rewards (otherwise there's no security).

[–]krollAYNot Registered 1 point2 points  (3 children)

You bring up a point that I’ve been thinking will be mandatory at some point for these utility coins, in order to use them they will have to be instantly liquid to and from the users preferred payment coin. Like an advanced form of 0x instant or something similar. That way users do not have to “purchase” BAT, but they can pay a content creator 5 Dai and 5 dai worth of BAT is sent to the creator.

I have not researched this a ton, so I may be way off on what is possible, but the friction of buying utility tokens is a big drawback in the crypto space right now

[–]cyounessiMakerDAO Risk Team 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're not way off, you're actually right on the dot. Look at Uniswap for how this can be achieved in practice (always liquidity and just takes an extra smart contract call. Will be easily abstracted away).

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

the friction of buying utility tokens is a big drawback in the crypto space right now

This

[–]reuptaken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"right now"

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[–]doug3465 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Sure, but that coinbase pump was sick.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

The crash made me sick

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (8 children)

How do you short Bat?

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 6 points7 points  (6 children)

Token borrowing is available on Compound finance

[–]xyrrusStaker 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I only see about 5.5k being borrowed on compound. That's a paltry short for such bold claims assuming that's even yours.

[–]WeLiveInaBubblewelive.eth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol. A short is a short I guess.

[–]dragespirBurrito 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Although an unpopular subject among BAT enthusiasts, this is the best answer to the question.

[–]WeLiveInaBubblewelive.eth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I've come to realise that no holders would want their token on Compund since you'd only borrow the thing you want to short.

[–]pegcityStaker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Butfinex?

[–]Libertymark 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Bunch of words to justify his short at the lows still

LOL

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seriously tho thanks for an awesome post. I’m a big bat fan like I’m headed to Vegas. But certainly am considering your thoughts

[–]Dazzling_Plum0Redditor for 7 months. 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you show more information about bat?

[–]Gromerando 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't trade with BAT so don't care much about the value Now... Is there information on how many Brave users have setup the browser's wallet? The friends I referred Brave to are crytpo illiterate, don't care about the wallet or claiming the free BAT, and will never add funds. All they care about is browsing I don't see the BAT value going up and wonder why will anyone trade it

[–]Gert- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The real value of bat is the fiat value paid by the advertisers.

Earn money by viewing ads. That's going to work. BAT earn by publishers. That's going to work

The real value of bat is determined by the contribution of fiat money by advertisers. Zero advertisers then the value of bat is also zero Many advertisers will increase the value of bat. Example: if advertisers invest 1.22 billion in adds, the value of bat should be $ 1. This value can then be earned by the readers of adds publishers and brave.

The current value of bat is the expected value. That the ecosystem will work.

As bitcoin decreases, the value of bat also decreases. The value will increase due to the coming introduction of the adds. This seems to put a bottom on the current value

But this is crypto If the adds work If bitcoin rises If more and more people use brave If more and more people use bat Then......

[–]TidyGate1Redditor for 11 months. 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Thanks for your sacrifice buddy

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

?

[–]TidyGate1Redditor for 11 months. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shorting bat

[–]StreetrideEthereum fan 1 point2 points  (3 children)

You need to be better with your words m8. Top kek

Keep that short open. If you are ballsy go 40x and tell me and i will liquidate you

Good yet horrible write up. I hope you didnt waste too much time. You will never get it back.

[–]cryptoslate1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 5 points6 points  (2 children)

BAT isn't alone either, there are many projects which attempt to monetize with their own token when, in reality, such a token isn't needed in the first place. I think you're right, the BAT token might be adding unnecessary friction for users. Thanks for the analysis.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Definitely agree. This isn't a BAT specific issue, it's just the most prominent example

[–]TC23uK2 - 3 years account age. 25 - 75 comment karma. 3 points4 points  (4 children)

What a fraud... Shorting BAT on Compound? There's 8.2k outstanding principal of BAT. Put your money where your mouth is. Since you're so confident BAT is useless, why don't you show your short position to the public?

Otherwise, don't spread your baseless FUD. I can't even understand how one can be so misguided and have the cheek to post this. Given your 3 'conclusions', not once have you provided any quantitative analysis to why BAT is 'overvalued'. Since you're making these claims, the burden of proof is on you.

I mean, at least get the fundamentals right... at least read the whitepaper to understand how advertisers pay for ad slots, or a simple search on how Brave/ BAT aims to bring utility to the token for users. By the way, just because two projects share a similar token model, does not mean they belong in the same category. Clearly, Brave/ BAT is attempting to tackle a completely different problem in a completely different industry, albeit, using the same vehicle, it is these variables that will shape their journey. By ignoring these subtle differences, is like comparing apples to oranges.

It's a shame really. It's people like you who hinder adoption.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 3 points4 points  (3 children)

By the way, just because two projects share a similar token model, does not mean they belong in the same category. Clearly, Brave/ BAT is attempting to tackle a completely different problem in a completely different industry, albeit, using the same vehicle

Obviously.

But what are we, as retail, investing in? We are investing in tokens. If we invest in tokens, we care about value accrual to the token.

Value accrual to the token is exactly based on the token model

There's 8.2k outstanding principal of BAT. Put your money where your mouth is.

That's exactly what I did

[–]TC23uK2 - 3 years account age. 25 - 75 comment karma. 2 points3 points  (1 child)

We, as retail, are not investing in anything. We are merely choosing to become an early adopter of a network, where the token is to provide utility for 'something' (I'll let you figure this one out). I'm not going to do your homework for you because your post clearly shows you've not put much effort.

The beauty about pre-mature stages of technology is once blockchain hits utility phase, it'll get rid of those who expect to be spoon-fed research. And those that choose to be sheep will continue to follow like sheep because by then the masses and companies will have chosen to adopt those that provide utility and value.

Good luck with your short! P.S You should include your short position in your post so readers can decide the credibility of your 'analysis'.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good luck with your short!

ty

[–]woppityy1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's 8.2k outstanding principal of BAT. Put your money where your mouth is.

That's exactly what I did

First off I think you are full of shit, and completely lying about shorting BAT. But 8.2k, even if that's all you, why would you not put some real money down if you believe your silly little story so much?

[–]rotirahnInvestor 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Is writing detailed but misinformed analysis texts the new trend for spreading FUD?

[–]pablox434 - 5 years account age. 500 - 1000 comment karma. 4 points5 points  (13 children)

Although I agree with some points, I think it is easy to say that nobody knows. The macro environment will look VERY different 2-3 years from now. Now imagine 5 years from now. Also, the BAT total supply is a FIXED supply I believe. Thus, if BAT the browser becomes very successful AND cryptocurrencies are widely accepted worldwide, then who's to say that the actual BAT cryptocurrency will not have intrinsic value since you will be able to purchase anything with it plus all the usage driven by the actual browser and advertisers? Do you see the could be real picture here? Also, the SEC does not rule over the world. The world is BIG. So, to summarize again, no one knows. But it is your only choice to either buy some BAT if you believe that it will have usage in the long term future.

[–]krokodilmannchen🌷🌷ethcs.org 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Ten years ago crypto currency didn’t even exist. In 2018 the market hit >$800 billion. Thinking about the next 10 years makes your head spin.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If we're investing in anything, we have to look ahead. The entire role of investors is to invest in assets before they become valuable

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 1 point2 points  (10 children)

Thus, if BAT the browser becomes very successful AND cryptocurrencies are widely accepted worldwide, then who's to say that the actual BAT cryptocurrency will not have intrinsic value since you will be able to purchase anything with it plus all the usage driven by the actual browser and advertisers?

Why would advertisers want to jump through hoops to get BAT? Brave is a startup company. Forcing potential customers to use your unnecessary cryptocurrency is a sure fire way to drive them away.

There's a lesson from QSP

[–]Startingout26 - 7 years account age. 700 -1000 comment karma. 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Advertisers are incentivized by the savings accrued by avoiding ad fraud. BAT's value will come from publishers rather than consumers.

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

BAT's value will come from publishers rather than consumers

I think BAT holders should think critically about the advertising industry. Is this a problem publishers actually have? Or is this a round about way of justifying BAT's valuation

[–]Startingout26 - 7 years account age. 700 -1000 comment karma. 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ad fraud is a billion dollar issue. Advertisers lose huge amounts of money. A tokenized system like BAT could mean not only savings but accurate metrics (BAM). Think about that... accurate metrics without the use of trackers.

[–]codehalo -1 points0 points  (6 children)

Why would advertisers want to jump through hoops to get BAT?

Uhmm, 100+ million Brave users with an in-browser currency (BAT)?

[–]MusaTheRedGuardretail af[S] 4 points5 points  (5 children)

How many brave users do you think have ever used BAT, for anything?

[–]codehalo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok. Given where we are in Brave/BAT history, you cannot be taken seriously. And you took the time to write a good 3 minute read of uninformed drivel. Good luck.

[–]SleepShadow 1 point2 points  (1 child)

We are at the start of the marathon. Don't expect things this fast. That's the whole reason of early investing.

[–]maantrade 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suspect that things will move slowly, and slowly, and then really fast.

[–]maantrade 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Approaching this from another angle, which as networks every paid me ANYTHING for my attention or using my data? Just wait until everyone realises they can get a cut too...

[–]TonyGHodl1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What can you even short bat? Mex doesn't have it does it

[–]MarshallBlathers 2 points3 points  (2 children)

RemindMe! 1 year

[–]RemindMeBotNot Registered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will be messaging you on 2019-12-16 22:11:22 UTC to remind you of this link.

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[–]MarshallBlathers 0 points1 point  (0 children)

RemindMe! 2 years

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great post, this is the kind of stuff we want here!

[–]votebluein2018plzRedditor for 10 months. 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And people wonder why eth price crashed so much

[–]worthalter 1 point2 points  (1 child)

How long have you been in crypto?

[–]Scoop_of_Bryy1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Does the development team plan to add some sort of interoperability function? I feel like this would solve these issues.

[–]woppityy1 - 2 years account age. 200 - 1000 comment karma. 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What issues.