Brave has announced that they are partnering with Coinbase and BitGo to provide Bitcoin wallets and purchasing tools for the Brave Ledger, a new Bitcoin-based micropayments system which automatically and anonymously pays user’s favorite websites.
Brave will also allow users and publishers to opt into a better, privacy-preserving ad model which shares revenue with users as well as publishers.
Brendan Eich, President and CEO of Brave Software, says:
"The Brave solution fends off intrusive ads and stops the collection of personal details by third-parties, enhancing not just browsing speed, but security and privacy. With Brave, users can now fight back and keep their data private and defensible on their devices, while still supporting the content they wish to view via micropayments.”
$7 million total funding
Brave Software has also announced that they have raised a $4.5 million seed round investment from a group of leading VC firms and angel investors.
Participating in the round are Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, and Digital Currency Group amongst others. This brings the total funding to date to $7 million, and it will be allocated towards further platform development and growth.
Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, says:
"Pantera is thrilled to be partnering with Brave to bring an enhanced user experience, privacy, and security to the browser. Brave is bringing an innovative model where users and publishers can get paid in real-time micropayments using the Blockchain. We believe that Brendan and his team are best suited to execute on this vision.”
What’s so special about Brave browser?
Brave is a new open-source browser for desktop and mobiles which blocks invasive ads and online trackers to provide a faster and safer web experience. Unlike traditional browsers, Brave has a built-in ad-blocker (no extensions needed) which reduces page loading time, improves performance, and guards from ads infected with malware.
On the desktop, Brave provides a 40% to 60% speed increase and a 2-4x speed increase on mobile devices. Mobile users see a direct reduction in both battery and data plan consumption. Brave also protects users with leading privacy and security features such as HTTPS Everywhere (encrypted data traffic), fingerprinting shields, phishing protection, malware filtering, and script blocking.