Announcement: Brave unveils new Brave Swag Store, the official source for Brave and Basic Attention Token-branded merchandise. Powered by Dshop, Origin Protocol’s new decentralized e-commerce platform.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Brave Swag Store, the official source for Brave and Basic Attention Token-branded merchandise. The Brave Swag Store, which carries a variety of branded products such as shirts, hoodies, hats, socks, joggers, jackets, children’s apparel, stickers, and accessories, is powered by Origin Protocol and uses its new, decentralized e-commerce platform, Dshop. You can visit the Brave Swag Store now, here.

Brave’s partnership with Origin on the new Swag Store represents a move away from old-world e-commerce solutions that track users and clash with Brave’s core privacy values, and a step forward in Brave’s progressive decentralization goals. With Origin, the new Brave Swag Store is hosted entirely on IPFS, a peer-to-peer distributed file system, and includes zero tracking cookies or scripts.



The new Brave Swag Store also features an integration with Printful, which brings worldwide drop-shipping to the millions of Brave fans around the globe. At launch, users can pay for items using their credit card. And in the future, we will also work to support payments in Ether or Ethereum-based tokens.



Read the full announcement here: https://brave.com/brave-launches-new-swag-store-powered-by-origin/

Brave User Stats Update: Brave hits 13.5 million monthly active users and 4.3 million daily active users for March 2020

Brave’s user base grew by 1M+ users in the month of March alone! A warm welcome to all of our new users, and big thanks to our longtime users for your ongoing support!

@Brave hit 13.5M MAU / 4.3M DAU for March 2020. We will work on getting ration smaller by meeting all your Chrome user daily-driver needs. Sync v2 for all data types + wallet/ledger too.https://t.co/artKBsQdvA — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) April 2, 2020

Growth: Brave takes the #4 spot in Most Popular Communications Apps ranking in Japanese app store this week!

ありがとう、日本!

Khan Academy is now fully verified and set up to receive BAT donations, and they’re asking for your help!

A message from the Khan Academy team:

Khan Academy is a non profit organization supported by philanthropic donations. We are able to create interactive software, exercises, videos and articles for the world, for free because of this support. But we were already running at a deficit before the COVID-19 crisis and now our server load is 2.5x normal (approaching 100m learning minutes on Khan Academy *per day*).



Please think about donating at http://khanacademy.org/donate

Podcast: Brave’s Luke Mulks (Director of Business Development) on The Tatiana Show Ep. 251 discussing how to earn BAT as a Brave user, and how to give back to nonprofits focusing on COVID-19 relief

Episode description:

Tatiana and Luke discuss the importance of privacy in the digital age and the steps Brave takes to make sure privacy is their number one priority, why the companies in Silicon Valley are not as competitive with each other as people think, and how Google and Facebook’s privacy settings are not really keeping your data from being collected.



Luke describes the Brave Rewards system where a user can earn BAT tokens for viewing privacy-respecting ads, how to fund the content creator and publishers you enjoy and visit the most with BAT, and how Brave is giving back in this time of the COVID19 crisis by working with non-profits such as No Kid Hungry.

Click here to listen:

.@brave's mission is to fix the web by giving users a safer, faster, and better browsing experience while growing support for content creators.



Hear more on the latest episode of #theTatianaShow with guest, @lukemulks https://t.co/eaGlYDA9mf pic.twitter.com/mm4hOxblVt — QueenTatiana (@queentatiana) April 2, 2020

Tip for a Cause: No Kid Hungry is working to feed kids missing meals due to COVID-19 school closures. NKH is fully verified and set up to accept BAT donations. Tip BAT for a good cause today!

No Kid Hungry is a national campaign run by Share Our Strength, a nonprofit working to solve problems of hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world. After 25 years of successfully investing in local nonprofits and helping find the best approaches to eradicating poverty and hunger, Share Our Strength launched No Kid Hungry in 2010.



As a child hunger organization, ending childhood hunger is our primary focus, though Share Our Strength continues to invest in and develop other campaigns.



Learn more about Share Our Strength and our other work at ShareOurStrength.org.

Here’s how to donate using the Brave browser:

Get Brave. (Download for free at https://brave.com/, or from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store on mobile.) Activate Brave Rewards and Ads at brave://rewards, or via the triangular BAT logo on the right of the URL bar on mobile. Browse & earn BAT. Tip BAT directly to @NoKidHungry on Twitter, or to https://www.nokidhungry.org/. Click-to-tweet about your donation & spread awareness for a good cause!

Notice: If you are using Brave Rewards on Brave 1.2 or older for Desktop, it is time to upgrade your browser.

Brave Creator Tip Drive: Calling all verified Twitch streamers! Share your channel and let the BAT community support you! — Mar. 31, 2020

Community: Check out these great pics from community members who received their swag prizes this week!

If you want to win free BAT & Brave gear, keep an eye on the r/BATProject subreddit for weekly giveaways and instructions on how to participate!

This Week in Sponsored Images

From April 1st to April 7th, Brave users in the United States can find beautiful Sponsored Images by Newegg in the Brave browser’s New Tab Page.

Newegg Inc. is the leading tech-focused e-retailer in North America, with a global reach into more than 80 countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East. Founded in 2001, the company offers its tens of millions of registered users a comprehensive selection of the latest consumer electronics, entertainment, smart home, and gaming products. Newegg is consistently ranked as one of the best online shopping destinations, and the company regularly earns industry-leading customer service ratings. Newegg is headquartered in City of Industry, California, with North American distribution facilities located throughout the United States and Canada.



If you’re in the U.S., Look out for Newegg’s images in every fourth new browser tab.



Past campaigns include images BlockFi, Lokai, Crypto.com, eToro, and Western Digital.

Brave Creator Spotlight (In Partnership with Everipedia)

Twitch streamer, Sakura Tsubasa! 🌸

Sakura plays games to raise funds for a local children’s foundation, the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba. 🇨🇦Catch her streaming Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom of Hearts! ❤️



#TipWithBrave to support Sakura and her cause!: https://www.twitch.tv/sakuratsubasa



Read Everipedia’s entry on Sakura Tsubasa here: https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/sakura-tsubasa-streamer

Twitch streamer, Dubpace

Dubpace is a classically-trained trombonist who loves to “apply the elements of effective practice he learned from his music studies to becoming a better gamer.”



Catch him playing RPGs, looter shooters, VR games, and Classic WoW.



Check out his Twitch channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/dubpace



Read Everipedia’s entry on Dubpace here: https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/dubpace

Client Updates

Dev Channel v1.7.85

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.7.85

Beta Channel v1.7.84

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.7.84

Release Channel v1.5.123

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.5.123

Brave Team Tweets

A kind reminder: If you're using @Brave, you can head to https://t.co/xtmMwUYZTs and send a tip.



With schools closing, children are losing the school meals they depend on, and three clicks of your mouse can help with this. https://t.co/xtmMwUYZTs — Dan Murphy (@heydanmurphy) April 2, 2020 You can donate to non-profits & causes in a matter of seconds with Brave/BAT

1M+ new users in March. Go @Brave 🚀 — Des Martin (@dessie_martin) April 1, 2020 This tweet speaks for itself.

We just added a purchase of 504,219 $BAT to our Transparency page. That comes to a total of 1,038,660 tokens purchased by the Brave team this month. As always, track at https://t.co/ARnMhfGBMo.



Opt-in to Brave Rewards, and earn: https://t.co/QtqguV5Bsa — Sampson (@BraveSampson) March 30, 2020 Have you seen Brave’s transparency data feed yet? It’s your one-stop-source for platform stats & token activity

Y'all know that lately I don't usually post directly, and even more rarely about work.



However, I am ridiculously hyped about this! https://t.co/EgpSRclcdn



I am so very excited to see @originprotocol being used in the shop and I can't wait for y'all to see what's coming next. — Stay Home. Wash Your Hands. (@alex_wykoff) April 2, 2020 Alex is super happy about the all-new, Origin-powered Brave Swag Store!

BAT/Brave in the News

Wired: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

ONE AFTERNOON IN January, I sent a Twitter DM to an Irishman named Johnny Ryan. All I knew about him was that he worked on policy issues for Brave, a privacy-focused browser; another source had suggested I reach out. Ten minutes later, we were on a video call. Ryan, an academic turned tech-worker turned privacy crusader, talked me through the inner workings of the online ad industry from his home office in Ireland, and I came to realize why his perspective is so important. In the U.S., a handful of folks are suggesting that the behavioral advertising business model should be illegal. In Europe, a coalition of activists including Ryan are saying that it already is.



Read the full text here: https://www.wired.com/story/why-dont-we-just-ban-targeted-advertising/

Cointelegraph: Brave Browser Gains 1M New Users in a Single Month

Open-source internet browser, Brave, tallied more than one million new users in March alone, a tweet from Brave’s head of marketing, Des Martin, detailed on April 1.



With much of the world limiting their exposure to the coronavirus through self-imposed quarantine, web usership has undoubtedly increased.



As a result, various internet-based services have hosted significantly greater demand for activities such as web browsing, gaming, and shopping, a March 20 Bloomberg article stated.



Read the full text here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/brave-browser-gains-1m-new-users-in-a-single-month

Cointelegraph: Crypto to the Rescue after Khan Academy’s COVID-19 Traffic Surge

The founder of education platform Khan Academy has put out an urgent call for donations following a 250% surge in users due to the coronavirus crisis.



CEO Sal Khan asked users to donate fiat — or they can donate Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) via their Brave browsers — to help the platform stay open during the pandemic.



Khan said the surge was due to record numbers of students forced to stay home during lockdowns and social distancing requirements.



Read the full text here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-to-the-rescue-after-khan-academys-covid-19-traffic-surge?utm_source=Telegram&utm_medium=social

News You Should Know

Coindesk: Binance Donated $2.4M in Coronavirus Medical Supplies; CZ Pledges More

In an ask-me-anything (AMA) Friday, CEO Changpeng Zhao said his exchange has committed at least $2.4 million in crypto to buy sorely needed COVID-19 medical supplies and plans to donate up to $2 million more through its philanthropic arm, the Binance Charity Foundation (BCF).



“We are donating physical supplies, masks, other medical supplies, hopefully, eventually, ventilators,” Zhao said. He estimated Binance’s total contributions will add up to “somewhere around $5 million.”



While Zhao said Binance had already donated the $2.4 million, BCF’s website only noted $1 million donated so far.



Zhao said these supplies are shipping directly to hospitals in need. BCF’s early efforts focused on China: it has delivered hundreds of thousands of personal protective equipment (PPE) items to 300 Chinese hospitals as of March 20, according to BCF’s website.



PPE will now flow to other sickened countries.



Read the full text here: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-donated-2-4m-in-coronavirus-medical-supplies-cz-pledges-more

Washington Post: Everybody seems to be using Zoom. But its security flaws could leave users at risk

When Georgetown University began advising its faculty to use the video-call service Zoom to record classes during the coronavirus lockdowns, professor James Millward couldn’t help worrying about where all that video would end up.



His course on modern China features free-flowing and unsparing discussions about contentious issues such as censorship and surveillance. How would students’ privacy be protected? And could video of students’ faces, voices and questions someday be used against them?

Read the full text here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/02/everybody-seems-be-using-zoom-its-security-flaws-could-leave-people-risk/

Channel News Asia: EU justice chief urges US tech giants to halt virus clickbaits

EU justice chief Vera Jourova on Thursday criticized U.S. tech giants such as Google and Facebook for making money off coronavirus-related fake news instead of putting in more effort to stop the deluge.



With millions of people confined to their homes due to lockdowns to counter the spread of the virus, social media and online platforms have seen the volume of news on their sites and user traffic soar.



That has, in turn, sparked alarm and criticism because of the flood of disinformation.,



Jourova, who last week held a conference call with Facebook, Twitter Inc, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, said their efforts to date were inadequate.



The companies last week told Jourova that they had removed large quantities of false and harmful content, the bulk of which related to health and taken measures to remove ads related to protective equipment, such as masks, although there were still gaps. They also reported more users’ access to authoritative sources of information.

Read the full text here: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/eu-justice-chief-urges-us-tech-giants-to-halt-virus-clickbaits-12606236

Roaring Fans

There's not much better a feeling than being able to #TipWithBrave! I browsed around the @BAT_Community @reddit and dropped a few tips! Learn about @brave tipping here: https://t.co/QETAibXyfx and grab the browser to start tipping! https://t.co/uXMetgz2Wp — RobsteadyTTV (@Robsteady) March 31, 2020