Would it make more sense if BAT could be used to power other platforms and browsers in the future? Thus expanding its use-case and ultimately enhancing the value of the project and token.  

The Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Brave have some of the most committed communities in the cryptocurrency space, and right now many are already asking about the possible future of the Brave and BAT relationship.

How can both projects grow and achieve mass adoption if they don’t find a way to “go outside” and branch out from each other –not necessarily “separate” but expanding beyond the immediate working relationship of both projects?

BAT and Brave Will Branch Out

In response to a user’s question on the BATProject subreddit, the team stated that they “intend to extend the BAT ecosystem beyond the Brave browser”. This is good for the growth of the project and for mass adoption.   

“While the Brave browser represents the first "BAT-enabled application" and is the primary focus of BAT Roadmap 1.0, the team intends to extend the BAT ecosystem beyond the Brave browser. We envision the BAT platform being extended to other web browsers, chat/messaging applications, games and other attention-economy apps via open source mobile app SDKs, connected TV SDKs, etc.”.

How will BAT extend its Ecosystem?

Let’s hear directly from the CEO –Brendan Eich.

"I don’t want to corner the browser market; I think Brave will have a good growth curve and lots of market share among elite users who are very economically valuable, but BAT is the big play. I want the Basic Attention Token to be used widely, which means we will bring it to other browsers and other attention apps — things like podcast players, or games that have ads in them.” —Brendan Eich.

For sure, BAT is expected to be used not just for digital advertising but extending well into other “attention-based” platforms beyond the Brave browser.

Some of these new use cases being envisaged for the BAT project include:

• Other Browsers and Extensions

BAT will be used to power other browsers similar to how it runs on Brave through extensions.

Meaning the BAT ecosystem will extend to anyone using any of the current popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, etc.

The specific functionality to be developed in these external browsers and extensions is not yet clear but we hope to see something similar to what we have in Brave now obtainable in other Browsers in the near future.

• Telegram Bot

BAT is envisaged to be used in paying for users to view Ads. Again this is just another high-level idea and it will be good to see how developers are able to leverage BAT technology to monetize users’ attention on Telegram and telegram bots.

• WeChat Official Account:

WeChat is an all-in-one –messaging, social media and mobile payment app that was launched in 2011 by Tencent with currently over 1 billion monthly active users.

In the future, we envisage a seamless BAT integration in this App for various use cases such as delivering Ads on their social and messaging platform or even as a form of digital currency for payments. There are definitely many possibilities and it will be interesting to see how that works out on the App.

• Token and Status

The Basic Attention Token can also be used to monetize users’ attention inside of the various Ethereum-based dApps such as Coinbase’s new Token and Status app.

Developers of these Apps and many others that will come on board will be able to monetize their apps by integrating BAT-functionality such as privately-matched ads with revenue share and also reward their user base with BAT.

To maintain the privacy ideal of the Brave and Basic Attention Token, these apps and extensions must be fraud-resistant if they must participate in the BAT economy and Ad revenue sharing program.

In Conclusion

Above is the plan for the extension of the BAT ecosystem beyond Brave that will hopefully help drive mass adoption and increase the use cases and value of the Basic Attention Token.

A good development in this direction is the recent partnership between Brave Software and TAp Network which will enable all Brave Browser desktop users in the United States to redeem their BAT earnings for gift cards from more than 250,000 top national brands such as American Airlines, Delta, Hotels.com, Uber, Starbucks, Domino's, and Applebee's, Xbox, Playstation, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, Apple, Target, Walmart and many more partners in the TAP Network and charity organizations such as the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, World Wildlife Fund etc. 

So, BAT is not tied to brave alone, but rather, is a part of a future ecosystem which the team is continually building and expanding.

What do you think about the future of BAT in this regard? Please share your opinion in the comment section below.