Brave, a privacy-focused and open-source browser, raised $35 million from its initial coin offering (ICO) in under 30 seconds this week, according to a report.
The free browser, which automatically blocks advertisements and tracking cookies, has been growing in popularity since its 2015 release and is currently in open beta.
“ICOs operate by selling investors cryptocurrency, which can be used to store value in many ways beyond a traditional share,” explained Tech Crunch in their report. “For its sale, Brave created its own coin — The Basic Attention Token, or BAT — and sold one billion of them. That collection of BAT cost 156,250 ETH, which is just over $35 million.”
“A further 500 million BAT is stored for user growth and ‘BAT development,’ according to Brave, which is not planning another token sale in the future,” they continued. “The ICO is the highest grossing to date, and Brave’s business itself is one of the more interesting to make use the blockchain.”
Eich, who created JavaScript but left Mozilla in 2014 in controversial circumstances, had raised $7 million from investors including Founders Fund for Brave. He believes the current internet advertising system is inherently broken, and his ambitious proposal uses the blockchain to make things more efficient for all parties, advertisers, publishers and users, too.”
Brave, which was founded by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after he was targeted by social justice warriors over a $1,ooo donation to support Proposition 8, plans to use the proceeds of their ICO to “develop its advertising platform.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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