Written by: Xiaobing
An old coin that had been dormant for most of the past year, with a market cap of less than $300 million, suddenly exploded in the second week of October. BAT (Basic Attention Token) surged from $0.078 on September 13 all the way to $0.205 on October 13, a monthly gain of over 124%. The steepest move was concentrated in the final week: a single-day spike of 34% on October 9, perpetual contract open interest (OI) surging 60% in one day on October 10, and another 10% surge in a single hour on October 13.
Throughout this process, BTC fell 1%, and total market cap shrank 1.5%. BAT was pumping against the trend.
An even more noteworthy signal: price was rising, but the perpetual contract funding rate remained persistently negative.
This means short positions were more crowded than longs, and shorts were continuously paying fees to longs. As price moved up, shorts were forced to close, and the closing itself became buying pressure, pushing price further up—the classic "short squeeze" script.
The question is: does this rally have any fundamentals behind it?
In three months, Brave played three cards in succession
Looking back at the narrative backdrop of this BAT rally, there is a clear timeline:
On July 9, Brave released BAT Roadmap 4.0. This was the largest roadmap iteration since 2017, with the core shift being to reposition BAT from a "token for watching ads and earning rewards" to "attention payment infrastructure for the AI era."
Four key product directions were launched simultaneously:
First, support for the x402 protocol and Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), enabling AI Agents to autonomously execute micropayments within the Brave browser. This directly plugged BAT into the hottest narrative track of 2026: AI agents.
Second, BravePay, a stablecoin-based privacy payment protocol layer supporting self-custody, .brave addresses, and GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoins.
Third, Brave Rewards Card, a physical payment card where users can earn BAT rewards by spending, and conversely, also spend BAT in daily consumption. This effectively expanded the token's use cases from within the browser to offline retail.
Fourth, Creator Contribution Protocol, with the core mechanism being: when AI platforms use creators' content for training or inference, micropayments are automatically issued to creators via the BAT blockchain ledger. This tapped into the global public issue of "AI copyright compensation" in 2026.
On August 3, the Brave Rewards Card waitlist officially opened. This was the first product action to land after the release of Roadmap 4.0. Although the card-issuing partner and available regions had not yet been disclosed, it gave the community a concrete target to wait for.
In early October, BAT began to be discussed as a candidate for Internet Computer (ICP) chain-key token. If realized, BAT would gain cross-chain native integration capabilities, further expanding its use cases.
The common direction of these three cards is clear: Brave is attempting to evolve BAT from "browser points" into a "cross-platform payment token." AI micropayments, physical card spending, creator compensation, cross-chain integration—each direction is doing the same thing: finding use cases for BAT beyond browser advertising.
Price structure: Is it spot or leverage driving the pump?
The market data presents a set of contradictory signals.
The bullish side: On October 9, BAT rose 34% in a single day, from $0.094 to $0.131. On October 12, it rose another 16% to $0.175. On October 13, it touched $0.205, a 24-hour gain of 33%. The daily-level price structure has completed a swing structure transition from bear to bull, breaking through two key resistance levels: the May high of $0.127 and the February high of $0.139. Trading volume reached $51.7M during the rally, confirming buyer participation.
The hesitant side: Data on October 10 showed OI surging 60% in one day, indicating a massive influx of leveraged positions. By October 12, although price continued to rise, trading volume actually declined 16%. This means spot buying weakened in the later stage of the rally, and leverage was taking over. RSI had already hit 87.91, in extremely overbought territory.
Negative funding rates deepen this contradiction. Normally, when price surges, funding rates should turn positive (longs crowded). But BAT's situation is reversed: shorts are still adding positions or stubbornly holding on, refusing to capitulate. There are two possible interpretations.
Optimistic interpretation: Spot buying is too strong, shorts can't react in time, and persistently negative funding rates mean shorts are passively getting hit, with room for further short squeezing ahead. Negative funding rates combined with rising OI is the classic pattern of "short squeeze not yet over."
Pessimistic interpretation: Shorts aren't fools. Negative funding rates mean the cost of shorting is decreasing (shorts are actually collecting interest). This structure could mean smart money is waiting for price to reach target levels before collectively dumping. Once spot buying is exhausted, leveraged longs will become the first wave to be liquidated.
Looking back from $0.20: What is BAT still missing to "truly revive"
BAT's current price is around $0.20, and this number needs to be placed in a larger coordinate system.
BAT's all-time high in November 2021 was $1.939. The current price is down 90% from ATH. Even after a 124% gain, BAT has only bounced from the historical bottom region, still about 35% away from the January 2026 local high of $0.302.
Market cap is approximately $300 million, ranking around 120th on CoinMarketCap. For a token born in 2017 that has a product like the Brave browser with tens of millions of monthly active users, this valuation is severely compressed. Brave currently has over 50 million monthly active users, and Leo AI has already integrated models from Anthropic, Meta, and others. As a project with a real product and user base, BAT's valuation has long been priced as an "old coin with no narrative."
Roadmap 4.0 attempts to break this pricing logic. AI micropayments, stablecoin payment cards, creator compensation protocols—each narrative corresponds to a direction the market is willing to pay a high premium for in 2026. But all of this is still at the roadmap stage. Brave Rewards Card opened a waitlist, with no card issuance timeline. BravePay is a concept in a whitepaper, with no code. x402 protocol support is "coming soon," with no specific date.
The standard for an old coin's revival isn't a single pump—it's whether the narrative can be continuously delivered on.
If Brave can launch the actual Rewards Card product in Q4, or get BravePay's MVP online, this BAT rebound could shift from "sentiment-driven" to "value re-rating." But if the next three months remain at the "roadmap + waitlist" stage, the 124% gain will have merely provided shorts with a better entry price.
The above content is market analysis and does not constitute investment advice. The crypto market is highly volatile; please assess risks yourself.