Yes, Brave is using the Blink engine (via Chromium). Chromium is an open source project with many contributors (including Google). Google uses this as part of their larger strategy involving ads and trackers, no doubt. But at the end of the day, it's a tool for displaying websites. To what ends you use it is dependent upon your end goal. Google used to tell everybody "Don't be evil" was at the core of their being; Brave says "Can't be evil". This is a stark difference-Google maintains the capacity to do harm, whereas Brave precludes it.

The Basic Attention Token User Growth Pool was created during our Token Sale in 2017; not from VC funds.

Ad Fraud is relevant because it claims more and more digital advertising dollars each year. Estimate today put it over 20 billion. By reducing middle-men, clearing up reporting, and more, there is less revenue lost, and therefore more revenue for creators and users alike.

By moving ad-matching and more into the Browser, we make it much harder to defraud the system. Further, this system rests solely in the user's domain; you control what is shown and with what frequency.