March 2021 BAT Purchases Analysis
On March 23, 2021, Brave released some new numbers about BAT purchases over the course of the month on the Transparency Data Feed page. What we have looks like this:
| Date | Tokens | Record link |
| 2021-03-23 | 91,449 | 3fd889ba-62f7-43b3-bab2-14f72920869d |
| 2021-03-23 | 90,508 | 3fe18cf6-ad48-4593-a4d3-c702d7a91ceb |
| 2021-03-23 | 90,405 | 64e24b1f-cee2-4254-86ab-06d788163c7a |
| 2021-03-23 | 90,495 | 576d1d41-5339-40fb-9c2a-84884023c49f |
At first glance, numbers like these might come as a surprise for anyone who has been following the data feed in previous months. For instance, this is what the data looks like for February 2021:
| Date | Tokens | Record link |
| 2021-02-25 | 174,762 | 085a2f75-536b-48ca-99b3-6a89b9a43f78 |
| 2021-02-24 | 201,251 | dfa83a89-0936-4b3c-a689-0534b82c5029 |
| 2021-02-24 | 197,297 | c788396d-42b6-4edf-aa56-ddafb2f1a6d0 |
| 2021-02-24 | 195,049 | b1511ed2-7dc8-45a0-86ac-fc538026922a |
As we can see, March BAT purchases come out to 362,857 vs. February BAT purchases of 768,359. Basically, a reduction of -405,502 month-over-month.
Before Everyone Panics
The most obvious answer about why this happened is the increase of the value of Basic Attention Token. On February 23, BAT was trading at $0.47 each. On March 23, BAT was trading at $1.06. Keep in mind that advertisers must buy BAT in order to make advertising purchases in the ecosystem. Therefore, purchases of the same dollar amount would result in fewer tokens being granted. In order to more accurately gauge the ad spend, we need to compare dollar values.
According to the record links provided, Brave made token purchases of $387,128.94 in February and made $400,000 in token purchases in March (as of the 26th). That means that ad spend actually INCREASED by almost $13,000 month-over-month. This still signals growth in the platform.
What Does Fewer BAT Purchased Mean, Though?
Frankly, this means that the amount of BAT distributed to users will probably be smaller this month than it will have been in previous months. For example, if you take the monthly average users total at 25 million and you evenly divide by the number of BAT given out each of the last two months, you will find that in February, those users would have received 0.03 BAT (768,359 / 25,000,000) vs. receiving 0.014 BAT (362,857 / 25,000,000) in March.
Conclusion
It’s important to note that even though you may receive fewer BAT, the VALUE of what you receive should still be the same. So if you’re in a market where you generally get $3 per month, you’ll still be getting $3 per month in BAT. It’s just that the BAT you receive for that money will be less.
That’s why all of you reading this now are in a good position and are comparatively still early. If BAT can reach the point of critical mass like Firefox or Chrome, the token pie will have to be shared with many more users and you may receive fewer BAT. However, the BAT you earn now could be more valuable, especially if one day 0.05 BAT is worth $3 and you’ve happened to be holding on to your tokens from today ($3 = ~3 BAT). That would mean that $3 dollars you earned today could potentially be worth $60 in the future.
Not bad for earning money browsing the internet and paying attention to a few ads!
