You need ETH to move BAT?

Brave Wallet (Self Custody)
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I deposited BAT in the Brave wallet, discovered I couldn’t use it from there to tip creators, tried to move it somewhere else, and discovered I couldn’t because BAT cannot be used to pay for its own transfer, one must use ETH instead. I tried to swap BAT to ETH, and there again, can’t be done, because you need ETH to pay for the gas required for the swap.

Does that mean the only solution would be for me to buy ETH, pay to send it to the Brave wallet, then pay again to send the BAT out the wallet?

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yes, only eth can be used to pay gas fees on the ethereum chain.

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Not necessarily. You can buy ETH from within Brave Wallet using the 3rd party built-in. Then you would send everything out. But yes, you always need the main crypto token for the network. So if you’re sending on Ethereum chain, you need ETH for gas. If it’s based on Solana, you need SOL. If on Binance Smart Chain, you need BNB.

Even when you’re sending the primary token, such as ETH, you have you intentionally leave some ETH aside for gas fees.

When you’re using self custody wallets, like Brave Wallet, you have to be much more mindful of these things. Whereas using places like Uphold or Gemini makes it a bit easier, as their systems are built out to do more for you. Typically, you only should use self custody wallets if you have large amounts of crypto. This primarily is because of the cost of gas and overall convenience.

Higher amounts of crypto kept in self custody because it eliminates the chances of getting suspended or something and losing access to your funds, of someone hacking in with a username/password to take all of your stuff, etc.

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Thank you for your answers.

I’m an early adopter of BAT, which I first bought years ago to be able to tip creators. At the time, it was easy: buy in Brave, keep in Brave, tip in Brave.

Then it was no longer possible to do that, and I stopped using BAT.

A few months ago, though, I decided to give it another go. And it has been a nightmare. I bought BAT and sent it to the Brave wallet, thinking, based on my experience years ago, that it was the wallet’s main purpose: to store BAT where it can be used to tip creators.

Instead, I discovered that I had to use a centralized exchange—which meant entrusting my BAT (and my private information) to a third party. To a kind of bank, basically, except less safe because if it folds, no nation will bail it out.

But then, anyway, I couldn’t register to either Gemini nor Uphold because I live in Taiwan, and Taiwan wasn’t among the countries either exchange covered. Then Uphold added Taiwan, but my registration failed, and I got no help from Uphold until a member of the BAT team contacted them for me.

The email I got from Uphold then was apologetic, but when I responded with a question, their beside-the-point answer showed they hadn’t given my question more than a cursory glance.

All this took hours and hours of nerve-racking efforts over months, and that wasn’t even the end of it. I had to spend over four hours again yesterday to get verified again. Not because the original KYC didn’t work, but because Uphold has a second verification system, which asks to take my photo, as the KYC had already just done.

And it failed. To finally make it work, I had to use Chrome instead of Brave. Considering that I was registering with Uphold only to use BAT to tip creator on Brave, the irony cut hard.

So now I’m on Uphold… but I cannot link my Brave wallet, as I thought would become possible. Instead, to be able to tip with BAT on Brave, I’m supposed to send my BAT from the Brave wallet to Uphold.

My experience with Uphold, however, has been horrendous. I don’t want to entrust them with either my BAT or more of my time.

At this point, all I want is to sell my BAT and forget about the whole ordeal.

I talked to a member of the BAT team, as I mentioned. He was very courteous, and very helpful. But I had to tell him, as I have to say here now, that BAT as it currently “works” will never take off. Tipping via other means (ko-fi, for instance) is just much, much, much simpler.

This member of the BAT team explained to me that my ordeal was the result of the BAT project having to comply with financial regulations. I get it. But it doesn’t change the fact that, as it now stands, tipping creators using BAT is waaay too complicated for John and Jane Doe. And if John and Jane Doe don’t adopt BAT as a tipping method, then BAT is as good as dead.

And now I must go through more loops and spend more money just to get my BAT out the Brave wallet and sell it. This is Kafkaian.

I wish you all good day.

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