Ever since I first heard about BAT and the Brave Browser, I had been fascinated by the project. An internet without tracking? Fast, privacy-friendly, and free? Earn Crypto by watching ads? Tip reddit users (I don't use Twitter...)? A-MA-ZING!

I have been using the Brave browser for more than a year, tipping BAT to sites such as Wikipedia, Invidio.us, Protonmail, Qwant and many others. Brave has blocked more than 500,000 trackers and ads, thus saving almost 7 GB of bandwidth. I couldn't be happier.

A few weeks ago, I started Orientexpress, a blog on travel and culture in Asia. I'm getting 100 - 200 views a day, but I am very confident that with time, this number will increase. One of the very first things I did after creating the blog: get it verified as a Brave Content Creator. The process was quite easy. As I am using wordpress, all I had to do was to install a plugin and copy a code. 24 hours later, I was a Brave Verified Content Creator - and ready to be tipped BAT! Easy as that.

I immediately tipped myself, to see if the process worked - which it did. I told my mom, my brother and shared my excitement with the r/BATproject subreddit. I recieved a total of about 40 BAT. The very first money I earned from blogging! That gave me a nice motivational boost.

I then tried to connect my wallet to Uphold, which I hadn't done until then. I was hesitant to sign up to Uphold, as I had heard that it was buggy, unreliable and just not worth it. But I was positively surprised. The KYC process was even faster than with Coinbase: I just had to take a picture of my ID, submit it, and wait a few hours. I then tried to figure out how to transfer my BAT from Uphold to my Ledger, which I am still in the process of doing. So far, great experience with Uphold though!

As a whole, I am very satisfied with my experiences as a Brave Creator! As my blog grows, I am sure that more people will be tipping BAT as well. I am also considering contacting other travel bloggers and let them know about BAT. Maybe I will even share Brave's exciting mission with my readers. The more, the merrier, right?

I am looking forward to see what the future brings for BAT, Brave and Orientexpress. Also, I can't wait for the Publisher Ads and Self Serve Dashboard! That will allow me to advertise my blog directly on Brave, paying with BAT. I just hope the ads won't be too expensive. Well, we'll see! I'll give an update in a few months - hopefully with many great news! I'll catch you then!