I don't like that Brave doesn't say, on their Brave Rewards page, warning: You will need to give up your privacy to cash out. If that's OK with you, great; if not, don't set your browser to show ads for months before you try cashing out or you'll get a nasty surprise.
From Brave's perspective, there's also a conflict of interest here. Remember, when an advertiser spends BAT to show an ad, 30% goes to Brave and 70% to the ad receiver. Brave has every incentive to get that 30%, don't they? If that means you were fooled into leaving your browser showing ads thinking you could cash out without losing your privacy, they benefit. And that's why it really smells fishy that they don't mention it on their product page.
I wouldn’t have any interest in using such marketplaces.
As for Brave: Whether or not KYC or other regulations explain their behavior, any cryptocurrency rewards program has an inherent incentive to make it as difficult as possible to cash out. People who cash out almost always sell their coins, putting downward pressure on the price. If they can use dark patterns to reduce the number of people selling coins, the coin price stays higher.
The ideal cryptocurrency rewards program (for the crypto, not the users) would give people coins but almost force them to hold those coins and make it as difficult as possible to sell. This simultaneously hypes the coin by spreading awareness and removes downward price pressure by making it difficult to sell. This almost always means the company or founders have a lot of the coin that they plan to sell off as it becomes popular.
Virtually everything that comes attached with arbitrary crypto tokens or rewards is a scam to make the founders wealthy while the users chase pennies.
I guess users could also send the tokens elsewhere to try and find an exchange that doesnt care about money laundering laws - but governments get quite involved in crypto.
Or is transfering tokens not possible?
This is what is also egregious. Yes, BAT is decentralized when you move it around in wallets, but as far as the browser is concerned, all BAT you earn from receiving ads is actually quite centralized.
If I go look at any other service which requires that kind of information, it's always right up front. Want a Robinhood account? Great, you have to provide the info when you open an acocunt.
I just donate BAT to sites.
Brave does “request info up front” for users who want to use the wallet. Requesting it from users who won’t need it is a waste of time.
All Robinhood users perform financial transactions, very few Brave users do.
I would prefer a wallet that I have control over, but I kind of ignore the BAT stuff and just use it because it’s a clean browser that’s easier for me than managing adblocker plug-ins. The tokens are just a bonus.