Brave has 120M+ users and most never touch crypto. Roadmap 4.0 is the fix — Luke Mulks, VP of Busine

Summary

Brave’s roadmap aims to make crypto and digital payments usable for its mainstream browser audience—not just people already comfortable with crypto. Luke Mulks, Brave’s VP of Business Operations, describes a shift from browser-based rewards toward a more complete, privacy-conscious payments experience.

Key points

• Brave’s user base and approach: The interview cites about 122 million monthly active users and 50 million daily active users. Mulks says Brave’s priority has been to make privacy protections—such as ad and tracker blocking—work by default, without requiring users to configure extensions or understand the technology.
• From BAT rewards to payments: Brave’s crypto efforts began with an early Bitcoin-based payments concept and expanded with Basic Attention Token (BAT) in 2017. BAT rewards users for their attention and lets them support creators. The new roadmap seeks to make those rewards more useful through everyday spending and familiar payment tools.
• A unified, self-custody wallet: Brave wants to bring its crypto wallet and other payment methods together in a simpler experience, likened to Venmo or a digital wallet. The goal is to make crypto transactions feel familiar while keeping users in control of their funds.
• Stablecoins and a payment card: The plan includes support for stablecoin transactions and a card that would let users spend through an established payment network, with merchants receiving conventional payment. Mulks presents cards as a practical entry point for people who might not otherwise use crypto. Users could potentially combine crypto rewards with ordinary card or merchant loyalty benefits.
• BAT rewards and creator monetization: Brave is considering using revenue from purchases and wallet activity to fund BAT buybacks and user rewards. The company also wants to make rewards useful for creator support, premium services, and token-gated access. Mulks raises the possibility of micro-royalties for verified publishers whose work is cited in AI-generated summaries.
• Privacy as a central concern: The speakers warn that linking blockchain wallets with social, email, or purchasing profiles could expose a detailed picture of a person’s finances and behavior. Brave’s stated aim is to develop payments without sacrificing privacy, building on its existing privacy-focused products and reporting methods.
• AI and changing internet economics: Mulks argues that AI summaries may reduce visits to original websites, putting pressure on advertising-based revenue. He sees transactions, creator payments, and other direct forms of monetization as increasingly important. The interview discusses AI and agent-related trends broadly, but does not provide a technical walkthrough of an agent-payment system.

Roadmap status and timing

• Mulks says Brave was in discussions with major card issuers and hoped to secure a partner and enable at least sign-ups—possibly virtual cards—by the end of the year.
• Wallet UX testing was underway, with a wider public testing call planned.
• He describes the roadmap as spanning roughly 16–18 months, with wallet and protocol work expected in the first and second quarters.
• At the time of the interview, Mulks reported 66,000 card-waitlist sign-ups, about three weeks after the announcement. The waitlist is presented as evidence of demand, not as a launched card or confirmed issuance schedule.

Reviews, guides, or tutorials

This is an interview and product-roadmap discussion, not a hands-on review, guide, or tutorial. No product walkthrough or step-by-step instructions are provided.

Main speakers

• Ashton Addison — host of the Crypto Coin Show and interviewer.
• Luke Mulks — Brave’s VP of Business Operations.