CoinDesk and Brave Software Partner on New Content Revenue Model with Private Micropayments and Focus on User Privacy

In order to maintain revenue with the value of ad impressions dropping across the Internet, many media companies have found themselves increasingly pressured to allow networks to serve ads that trade their users' privacy and security for delivery guarantees. Rather than follow suit and chase additional pennies from third-party networks that serve intrusive ads that track and follow users as they browse the Internet, CoinDesk has committed instead to evaluate new revenue models with Brave that provide brand advertisers with significant returns on their investment while also providing users with a faster, cleaner, and more private experience.

With Brave Payments, a bitcoin-based micropayments system that pays users' favorite websites privately and automatically from the Brave browser, people can now choose to support CoinDesk in exchange for an ad-free experience with no behavioral tracking and profiling by third parties, not even by Brave or CoinDesk.

Brave Payments allows users to fund a Brave wallet with bitcoin and select a monthly browsing "budget" to send to various sites; Brave Payments then automatically pro-rates payments to sites based on the user's traffic or manually selected preferences.

"We believe stripping out low-yield, low-quality ads is in the best interest of CoinDesk as well as our users," said Ryan Selkis, Managing Director of CoinDesk. "With Brave, we're taking a calculated risk that users will value the gains in privacy, speed and security to the point they'll consider using small amounts of bitcoin to fund their monthly digital media consumption."

"We're excited to partner with CoinDesk to reform the ad-tech ecosystem. Brave Payments gives browser users and website content creators the fair deal they deserve with ownership of their data," said Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave Software. "Now users have a new and private way to support CoinDesk and its high-quality content, while enjoying a clean browsing experience free of third-party intermediaries that clog Web pages with invasive ads, trackers, and sometimes even malware."

This partnership marks a momentous occasion for both companies as CoinDesk is the first premium publisher to commit to the Brave model. By removing third-party ads and trackers from the browsing experience, Brave users can save hours of time per year with faster loading pages. On the desktop, Brave provides a 40% to 60% speed increase, and a 2x to 4x speed increase on mobile devices. Mobile users also see a direct reduction in both battery and data plan consumption.

This partnership also signifies the first of several anticipated bitcoin business initiatives for CoinDesk in 2017, a reflection of the confidence the company has in the technology it covers. In particular, the company sees itself as a leading candidate to identify a pay-per-view micropayment model that actually works. CoinDesk has future announcements specific to bitcoin planned in the coming months.

About CoinDesk:
CoinDesk (http://www.coindesk.com) is a media & events company based in New York City with the mission of chronicling the blockchain movement and create a forum for critical discussions among those building a more productive and inclusive digital economy.

About Brave Software:
Brave Software (https://brave.com/) is a new start-up that is building a fast, open source, privacy-focused browser that blocks invasive ads and trackers. Brave aims to reset the online ad ecosystem with faster and safer browsing, as well as Bitcoin micropayments to support publishers. The Brave solution is a win-win for everyone who has a stake in the open Web and who is weary of giving up privacy and revenue to the ad-tech intermediaries.

SOURCE Brave Software