Allow Self-Custodial Wallets to store BAT

ZelnickB commented 9 months ago

Description

As far as I know, it is not possible to store BAT in a self-custodial wallet—a custodial wallet must be selected from only a few available options. While this may be a simple way for Brave users to start earning BAT, advanced users should also have the option to input the address of a wallet that they control.

Steps to Reproduce

Go to the Brave Rewards setup page.

Actual result:

There is no option for storing BAT in a custom wallet.

Reproduces how often:

Always

Version/Channel Information:

Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? Yes
Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Not tested
Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? Not tested

Other Additional Information:

Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards? N/A
Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? N/A

Miscellaneous Information:

Brave advertises itself on its website as a browser that lets you "ditch Big Tech." Requiring users to trust and use a centralized wallet run by "Big Tech" doesn't seem to fit this philosophy. Having an option to use a centralized wallet is certainly nice, but not when it takes away users' freedom to use their own self-custodial wallet.

kenherbert commented 9 months ago

Brave are required by law to KYC every user receiving BAT from them. The partner exchanges have served that purpose for the last few years.

But Rewards is currently moving towards being more decentralized, which will include KYC from a third party that is not an exchange, and Rewards payouts to a wallet address. Just give it some time.

ZelnickB commented 9 months ago

@kenherbert Thanks for the information. Do you know which law requires this (and if it applies to all regions)?

kenherbert commented 9 months ago

I'm definitely no lawyer and couldn't tell you the specific laws involved, but the details as far as I know them are that it is both the crypto laws of quite a few countries, plus Brave's status under US law as a revenue sharing business. Obviously different countries have different regulations so likely not all require it from their respective ends, but the US part I believe requires them to KYC all recipients irrespective of location.

ZelnickB commented 9 months ago

@kenherbert Thanks. Do you know if the Brave team have a timeframe for the separated KYC/wallet custody feature?

kenherbert commented 9 months ago

So far it hasn't been officially announced yet, so I couldn't even begin to guess. Whenever the new roadmap is out I'm pretty sure we'll see some more details about it.

brave / brave-browser