The Brave web browser has just announced the termination of its referral program and the restart of a new one in early 2021.
The referral program began in February 2018. But the company announced on its Twitter page that the current program will wind down within the next 14 days.
“Creators using the referral program have 14 days to wrap up their Brave promotional activity,” the Brave Twitter page reads. However, the browser developers have promised to start another referral program early next year, as it plans to make major changes to the program that has generated millions of dollars for participants.
Over $12 million in BAT paid out to content creators
Brave’s first referral program was launched to give out $1 million in BAT to promoters of the Brave web browser. However, the developers had to extend the program by another year to 2019. By the end of last year, the developers had already distributed over $2.2 million in BAT to content creators for their promotional work.
The program was further extended by another year to 2020 after Brave evaluated the effectiveness of the program in promoting the Brave browser. In total, Brave has paid out more than $12 million in BAT as compensation for promoting the web browser.
No new participant will be accepted
While evaluating the impact of the program and the number of participants, Brave has decided to no longer allow new participants into the program. The change means that new content creators will not receive support from their audiences or verify web properties. But those already on the referral program before the announcement will not be affected by this change, the company stated.
Brave said after Nov 23, new referrals will not be eligible for payouts. But the company says it will pay out all 30-day confirmation that occurs before Dec 24. Those with referral confirmation in December will receive their BAT funds in early January, according to the announcement.
Brave seeing rapid growth on all fronts
With more than 2,000 ad campaigns in about 200 countries and nearly 1 million verified creators, the ad campaign of the web browser can be considered a success so far.
It’s even a more impressive achievement as the Brave 1.0 web browser was only introduced one year ago. Within a year, the web browser has reached 20 million monthly active users from 8.7 million a year ago.
The expansion is on several fronts, including reaching 7 million daily active users, which was only 3 million a year ago.
However, the referral program is not the only reason behind the browser’s speedy growth. The browser is set up to block unsolicited ads, except those allowed by the user. The simplicity of the browser for users is another reason behind its increasing popularity.
Several positive developments are surrounding the browser at the moment. Google Play recently rated the browser as #1 on its platform. This is coming after Apple allowed users to choose the iOS version of the browser as their default browser option. As a result, the number of Brave iOS daily active users grew by 34%.
