The crypto stuff is already disabled by default, so not sure why people complain about it so much when it's opt-in not opt-out.

Brave doesn't require you to invest your own money, their coin holds practical value. People who turn on Brave Rewards get free money that can be withdrawn. Sure it can't make you rich but the money is still a lot more than Chrome and other proprietary browsers ever gave you, imagine getting paid for receiving (not viewing or interacting) ads. Their model works and they give away 80% of their revenue back to the users, who else does that?

Every time I hear someone calling Brave's crypto a scam, I immediately point out the fact that they're an independent browser company that was able to find a viable business model that doesn't require them to sell their soul to Google like Mozilla.

Everybody keeps asking, "What if Mozilla found out a monetization strategy that would make them independent from Google and allow them to make their own decisions", well that's Brave! It's the first independent browser company that's able to earn money on their own without compromising user privacy. I don't like crypto either but I do believe what Brave is doing has value and BAT is definitely not a scam, it works and it works well.