Quit weird. Really really weird.
Weird in a sense that Brave Software Inc put a lot of manpower, resources for maintaining vBAT and it suddenly goes into dustbin.
Why spend so much $$ on maintaining vBAT in the first place.
On the other hand, the concept of brave rewards is good. But the distribution of said rewards should never have required a cryptocurrency of all things. In the BAT whitepaper, it discusses on great lenths regarding BAT, brave rewards, how brave rewards will work with cryptography but it never touches the subject regarding how these BAT will be distributed to users and creators which I found quite odd.
They could have used a system/database where the rewards are distributed via USD by Stripe/Payoneer/Paypal. In 2015/2016, they have hoped on the ‘Web3’ meme and now cannot get out. Now, they are stuck with KYC/AML not only in US but in all countries…
For eg., Patreon does not have any cryptocurrrency whatsoever. It just uses a database where each account/user uses USD. They fund it with either Debit card or paypal.
Currently, Brave team will have to think extensively on this topic. As to how to get properly distrubute brave rewards via BAT. As far as I know, they are working on some concept called Brave Rewards 2.0 but we will have to see how it goes.
At it’s present state, Brave rewards is not a mess but BAT is a mess.