According to statistics by AppBrain, a website that tracks Android app rankings, the cryptocurrency-based web browser Brave became the most downloaded web browser in Japan last month. Brave reportedly jumped eleven spots to the 9th place in the ranking for apps in the communications category, and currently boasts over 2 million downloads.
Brave Surpasses Firefox and Opera
Brave Browser surpassed Firefox, which had 553 thousand downloads, and Opera, which saw over 1 million app downloads, a drop of 50 percent from last month. However, Brave still pales in comparison to Google’s Chrome browser which holds over 60 percent of the mobile browser market share globally.
Brave was created by Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript, in 2015. The browser has since reached over 30 million downloads on desktop and mobile. The browser notably introduced Ethereum-based Basic Attention Token (BAT) in June 2017, raising over $35 million through the sale of 1 billion tokens. The browser incentivizes users with BAT tokens for watching curated and non-intrusive advertisements.
Users can use BAT to tip websites and content creators such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, and streamers on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. It recently also bagged Wikipedia as a verified publisher.
The browser also announced that it would be supporting a native cryptocurrency wallet through which users will be able to buy and sell BAT tokens. After receiving criticism over the requirement of KYC to create a wallet, Brendan Eich said that
“Brave can’t let fraud bots with Ledgers or Trezors take us to cleaners, and we have to avoid going to jail if some Office of Foreign Asset listed evildoer were to take out BAT that way.”
He added that BAT achieves regulatory compliance via Uphold and that he would defend his decision by citing growth numbers with publishers and users.
Japan Looks to Cryptocurrency to Drive Growth
Japan has been at the forefront of cryptocurrency adoption, with over 10,000 companies now accepting payments in Bitcoin. In April 2017, Japan regulated cryptocurrency exchange businesses under the Payment Services Act. Japan also established the Financial Services Agency (FSA) in 2014 as a registration platform for cryptocurrency businesses.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, one of Japan’s largest banks, recently announced that its digital coin MUFG Coin will be available to the public sometime in the second half of 2019. According to Takashi Shiono, an economist at Credit Suisse,
“There are estimates that tax revenue from the cryptocurrency business, including capital gains taxes from individual investors and corporations, could amount to 1 trillion yen (US$9.2 billion), though that is very speculative at this stage.”
Do you believe Japan’s crypto acceptance is driving Brave Browser adoption as well? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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