What to do with your BAT tokens?
So, you have just cashed out your BAT (Basic Attention Tokens) from Publish0x (or elsewhere) and they are now sitting in a wallet to which you hold your own private keys. What to do with them now, what do they do?
Well, the answer depends on what sort of use case you have for these particular tokens. Are they for your own private investment and enrichment, are they for day to day living, or do you wish to help and replace the current internet advertising and tracking model?
Supporting the new Internet Ecosystem
If you see yourself as part of the decentralised revolution, then the best way to use BAT is via the Brave browser. Brave is a privacy first browser that is part of the BAT ecosystem, hoping to create a new relationship between user, content provider and advertisers.
As the internet has grown, so has the prevalence of tracking via cookies to deliver "personalised" advertisements. There are many reasons to be wary of this sort of aggregated "anonymous" advertising and in response to this unwanted stalking, many internet users installed ad blocker extensions on their browsers. However, instead of "sticking it to THE MAN", the end result of this was the content creators saw their revenue plummet as blocked advertisements were no longer providing incoming shared income.
Despite this, many people still thought that they were "sticking it to Google and the multinationals" when in fact, they were starving their favourite creators.
BAT is a token that can be bought (or "earned" via viewing untargeted advertisements) as a way to support creators for their lost advertisement revenue. Via the Brave browser, you can set up recurring monthly payments to websites, tip creators directly or just do a set revenue share from a predetermined pot of BAT for the month.
This is the real use of BAT (it isn't supposed to be the next Bitcoin to make you rich... it is supposed to be a re-imagining of how we interact as consumers and creators on the internet). You can read more about this vision on the whitepaper hosted at the BAT Website.
Decentralised Finance (DeFi)
If you are more of the type that would like to use BAT to try and generate investment profits or to play around in the world of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), you have a few options open to you. The benefits of using DeFi portals is that you are interacting directly with smart contracts from your own private Ethereum wallet. No need for a third party to "hold" your tokens for you. Several reliable options exist in this space....
Oasis is the portal for the newly launched multi-collateral DAI stablecoin. By opening a Vault and locking your BAT (or ETH or any other accepted collateral) at a rate of 150% over-collateralisaion, you can withdraw and start using DAI. DAI (other than being one of the other reward tokens on Publish0x is a crypto-native stablecoin backed by crypto collateral. One DAI represents a claim of one USD worth of collateral (such as ETH or BAT), this is in contrast to the other stablecoins such as USDT which represent a claim of one USD worth of fiat currency.
Compound is one of the largest and longest lasting dApps for Lending and Borrowing Ethereum based tokens. For quality and liquidity reasons, it is limited to a few tokens of which BAT is one of. From this portal, you can add your tokens to the liquidity pool of Compound. At the moment, BAT has a relatively low interest rate of around 0.3%, however, this is better than most consumer banking rates around the world... some of which are already at 0% or even negative!
Uniswap is another DeFi portal that also has the ability for liquidity provision. This is a slightly less clear mechanism to beginners, as you are required to input both BAT and ETH to the liquidity pool to preserve what is known as a constant product model. I have written more about it here on Publish0x, but the main takeaways are that you collect fees on transactions that utlise the liquidity pool but the actual amounts of ETH/BAT that you withdraw will depend on the relative market prices between the two assets (ETH/BAT) at time of entering and time of withdrawing.
Exchanges to Cash Out
Sometimes, you just need fiat to live off... after all, not all of us can set aside assets with future potential value and lose out on the immediate value of the said asset. This is especially true in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, it is incredibly unclear what the future holds for each specific token. Perhaps you are more comfortable with familiar fiat, or a different token, or perhaps the older and more "trusted" coins such as Bitcoin or Ethereum?
If you choose the route to cash out to more reliable cryptocurrencies, you will have the option of a decentralised or centralised exchange to do the conversion. However, if you choose to go all the way back to fiat, then you are going to generally need to do it via a a centralised exchange that has to abide by KYC rules for money laundering compliance.
For BAT to other cryptocurrencies, I have my preference for Binance due to the high liquidity and relative trust in the platform, however many people will also be familiar with the platform Coinbase which also has a relatively trusted reputation in this otherwise murky space. Other exchanges which I also consider worthwhile are Bittrex and Kraken, all of which have BAT trading pairs.
Decentralised exchanges have the advantage that you will keep your digital assets under your own control at all times, however it is offset with the problems of having to deal with on-chain fees for Ethereum, possible front running at DEXs and also a much smaller pool of trading pairs (BTC will be represented as the Ethereum version known as Wrapped BTC). However, if you do choose this route, I would highly recommend Uniswap as your first port of call for a way to avoid having to deal with order books and to get a known price for your transaction.
Now, if you are going to exit all the way to fiat, you will have to use an on-off ramp such as Coinbase, one of the Binance offshoots (Europe or US), LocalBitcoins or Coinjar. Keep in mind that some of these ramps will not have direct BAT trading pairs, but will require an intermediary currency of Bitcoin or Ethereum. However, from these on-off ramps, you can make an exchange to fiat to deposit into your bank account directly (minus a fee...).
Conclusion
With your BAT earnings from Publish0x (or elsewhere...) you are free to use your hard earned cryptocurreny in whatever way suits your particular use case. If you need the money in more widely accepted fiat currency, that is possible... if you want to speculate on other cryptocurrencies, that is also possible... and if you want to try and grow and support the decentralised internet financial model as envisaged by the BAT team, you are more than welcome to do that as well!
In the end, whichever route you take (or you can take all three!) is really dependent on what you own situations demands. There is no correct choice, all are viable, and all will be different depending on your own particular needs and vision.
Looking for a quick and easy way to keep track of your cryptocurrencies? Coin Tracking offers a free service that includes manual tracking or automatic tracking via APIs to exchanges, allowing you to easily track and declare your cryptocurrencies for taxation reports. Coin Tracking can easily prepare tax information sheets that are catered to each countries individual taxation requirements (capital gains, asset taxation, FIFO). Best to declare legally and not be caught out when your crypto moons and you are faced with an unexpected taxation bill (unless you are hyper secure and never attach any crypto with traceable personal information, good luck with that!).
Keep Your Crypto Holdings Safe with Ledger
Ledger is one of the leading providers of hardware wallets with the Ledger Nano S being one of the most popular choices for protecting your crypto currencies. Leaving your holdings on a crypto exchange means that you don’t actually own the digital assets, instead you are given an IOU that may or may not be honoured when you call upon it. Software and web based wallets have their weakness in your own personal online security, with your private keys being vulnerable in transit or whilst being stored upon your computer. Paper wallets are incredibly tiresome and still vulnerable to digital attacks (in transit) and are also open to real world attacks (such as theft/photography).
Supporting a wide range of top tokens and coins, the Ledger hardware wallet ensures that your private keys are secure and not exposed to either real world or digital actors. Finding a happy medium of security and usability, Ledger is the leading company in providing safe and secure access to your tokenised future!
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