Browse to Earn, The New Web 3.0 Income Stream

The crypto metaverse has seen its fair share of income earning strategies ranging from PTCs (paid to click), faucets, trading, farms/pools and, of course, the currently trending play-to-earn games. Now browse-to-earn is about to become the new paradigm.

The fundamental idea and driving force behind browse-to-earn is the need to reduce the exploitation of service providers by giving back to the user a share of the profits which the user’s data generates whenever they use the Internet. The service providers have been using these data to generate huge revenue free-of-charge. But with browse-to-earn products, you can get a share of that revenue that you helped generate. Basically, this means getting paid for your data.

In the browse-to-earn model, users of a browser product are offered financial rewards (typically cryptocurrency) for using the browser.
The approach is beginning to gain traction and a number of viable products have already entered the arena. The popular brave browser has largely dominated this segment but some other worthy products have joined the fray. I aim to introduce these products as a viable source of supplementary revenue.

This is not an in-depth analysis of any of these products so I may miss some features. I will present a brief overview of each product. The reader can conduct further research to find out more about these tools.

1. Brave Browser
Earning Model: Filtered Ads presented to the user
Cryptocurrency Earned: Basic Attention Token (BAT)
Platforms: Desktop and Mobile
Other Features: Wallet linked directly to exchanges (Uphold, Gemini)
Link: https://brave.com
Notes: Requires KYC at exchange to transfer funds

2. Cryptotab Browser
Earning Model: Cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency Earned: Bitcoin (BTC)
Platforms: Desktop and Mobile
Other Features: Referral system, Mining boosters
Link: https://cryptobrowser.site , https://cryptotabbrowser.com

3. Netbox Browser
Earning Model: Get paid for using the browser for regular browsing activities
Cryptocurrency Earned: Netbox coin (NBX)
Platforms: Desktop and Mobile
Other Features: Browser is a node on the blockchain, in-browser staking
Link: https://netbox.global

4. Decentr Browser
Earning Model: Get paid for your browsing data. Uses a points system (PDV) to give value to your data, the PDV is then converted to money
Cryptocurrency Earned: Decentr (DEC)
Platforms: Desktop
Other Features: In-browser staking of DEC coins, publishing hub for posting articles, VPN, Adblock
Link: https://decentr.net

5. Swash browser extension
This is a browser extension that works on most of the common browsers.

Earning Model: Get paid for your browsing data.
Cryptocurrency Earned: Swash Token (SWASH), Formerly Streamr (Data)
Platforms: All compatible Browsers
Other Features: Can link one account to multiple browsers, Referral system.
Link: https://swashapp.io

6. Pando Browser
Earning Model: Ads presented to the user, Mining
Cryptocurrency Earned: Pando Coin (PANDO)
Platforms: Mobile
Other Features: Free VPN, IPFS integration
Link: https://pandobrowser.com

7. Presearch Browser Extension
This is a browser extension that works on most of the common browsers.

Earning Model: Get paid for using the search engine
Cryptocurrency Earned: Presearch Token (PRE)
Platforms: All compatible Browsers
Other Features: Keyword staking
Link: https://presearch.org

8. Permission.io browser extension
This is a browser extension that works on most of the common browsers.

Earning Model: Ads presented to the user
Cryptocurrency Earned: Permission Coin (ASK)
Platforms: All compatible Browsers (Chrome-based browsers at the moment)
Other Features: Shop and earn, Can link one account to multiple browsers, Referral system. Daily bonus
Link: https://permission.io
Notes: Requires KYC to transfer funds

NB: All links were valid as at the time of writing this article.

My Musings
These browsers and extensions are the emerging faces of the browse-to-earn model. Some of these have already gained traction while some are relatively new projects.

The browser extensions allow you to kill multiple birds with one stone since you can benefit from both the extension’s reward system and the host browser’s reward system at the same time (that is, if you are using any of the above-mentioned browsers). You can even have multiple extensions running on the same browser. What’s more, you can use a single extension account across all your browsers. This allows you to use different browsers at different times while still pooling all your extension earnings to a single extension account.

Also, these browsers/extensions provide wallets where users can hold their earnings and hopefully with time, the cryptocurrency earned may gain in value and thus increase the worth of the earnings. The cryptocurrency earned on these platforms can be traded on a number of exchanges.

We browse all the time and it is nice to see that we can get some income while conducting our regular online activities. I offer no product recommendations but rather encourage that you Do-Your-Own-Research (DYOR) and go with the products that you are comfortable with.

As cryptocurrency gains more widespread adoption, we can all expect to see more browse-to-earn products emerging in the near future.

There are likely other browse-to-earn gems out there, please you can put any other ones you know in the comments.