I am Brave

I’ve been using the Brave web browser on my desktop and on my Android phone for many months now. Especially on the phone, it can’t be beat for speed and lack of annoying “you’ve now seen 10/10 articles this month” intermediation.

While Brave’s a snappy and well-designed browser, its killer feature is Brave Payments, a Bitcoin-driven way for users to put money into a kitty, and for publishers to get compensated from the collective kitty based on aggregate usage of their site by Brave users.

I’ve thrown money into the kitty (by sending Bitcoin through Brave’s Preferences > Payments screen), but until today I never saw the publisher side of the coin.

That’s because Brave’s description of how the system works appears to suggest that you need to pass a threshold of $100 USD in payments before they’ll set you up:

These funds grow as new micropayments are added. When contributions for a publisher exceed $100.00 USD, an email is sent to both the webmaster of the site and the registered domain owner from your WHOIS information. The email explains how to verify the ownership of your website with Brave Software.

I figured it was unlikely that I’d reached $100 in payments, or, indeed, that I ever would, so I left this thought aside.

But today I noticed that right under that paragraph is a link to Get Verified Now, and when I followed that link I was able to establish ownership of ruk.ca (through adding a DNS TXT record) and, presto, I found $4.99 waiting for me:

Not enough to quit my day job, I admit, but I’ll soon have $4.99 in hand, as I followed on, entered my Bitcoin address, and filled out an IRS W-9 form (easy to do online; just needed my name, address and SSN). My funds are due to be transferred from Brave at month’s end.

I’m fascinated by the system that Brave has built, and will be watching it closely.