Brave announces initial rollout of self-custody Brave Rewards BAT payouts via Solana

Today we’re announcing the highly requested and long-awaited rollout of self-custody BAT payouts for Brave Rewards. An initial group of invitees—and soon Brave users around the world—will be able to receive BAT earned from Brave Rewards to a self-custody wallet address on the Solana blockchain.

Invite only to start

Rewards on Solana is launching as an invite-only feature, starting with a limited group of early participants. Brave will send out invitations via a notification in the Brave Rewards panel. This invitation will unlock the ability for users to connect a self-custody Solana address and start receiving BAT on-chain. To find out if you’re eligible, keep an eye on Brave Rewards in your Brave browser.

Invitees will receive a notification in the Rewards panel and new tab page

To connect a Solana address to Brave Rewards, you’ll use a Solana wallet to verify that you own the address. You can do this with Brave’s very own integrated wallet, Brave Wallet, or with a third-party browser extension like Phantom.

Solana address connected to Brave Rewards

Once connected, monthly BAT rewards will be deposited directly on-chain to your Solana address in Wormhole-bridged SPL-BAT. That means you’ll be able to receive earned BAT without a custodial account (though the option to receive BAT rewards via a custodian will remain available).

Only possible on Solana

We chose Solana as the ideal network for the launch of on-chain Brave Rewards given its high transaction speed and low fees, which help reduce the costs associated with distributing BAT earnings to hundreds of thousands of users. For example, a single transaction on Solana costs on average $0.002 USD, while a single transaction on Ethereum, or on its most popular layer-2 scaling solution, Arbitrum, costs on average $1.00 and $0.10 respectively.

This new way of distributing BAT removes many of the barriers everyday people face when onboarding to Web3. There are no withdrawal fees or limits, since the Solana wallet is entirely owned and managed by the user. Users can earn and receive BAT directly on-chain, and use it on-chain however they like. For example, here are some great ways BAT can be used on Solana:

• Contribute directly to your favorite Brave creators with on-chain contributions (details below)
• Exchange between hundreds of tokens through the swap feature in Brave Wallet
• Buy a .SOL domain from Bonfida
• Earn trading fees by depositing SPL-BAT to Orca liquidity pools
• Mint and buy NFTs with SPL-BAT

Support your favorite creators on-chain

We also recently announced a new on-chain contributions feature as a more Web3-native way for users to support their favorite creators, including with the SPL-BAT they earn. Supporting self custody for users and creators is an important step toward a more decentralized Brave Rewards and Brave Creators experience. Together, they further our mission of providing users with greater control over how they browse, search, and transact on the Web.

Keep an eye on our blog, social accounts, and Brave Community forums for the latest news from Brave, and announcements about new rounds of Solana on-chain invites.