A "connected Brave Rewards profile" means that you've connected a custodial account or self-custody wallet to your Brave Rewards profile.

What is a "custodial account"? A custodial account is an account with a company—a custodian—that holds your BAT for you. This includes crypto exchanges like Gemini or bitFlyer, and services like Uphold. 

A self-custody account, like Brave Wallet, means you alone have the ability to manage (or transact with) your assets, like BAT. There is no third-party or intermediary holding your assets for you.

What happens when I connect a custodial account?

When you connect a custodial account:

1. Earning and Accruing BAT Rewards: You will begin earning and accruing BAT for Brave Ads you see, as part of Brave Rewards.
   
   
2. Your Brave Rewards BAT balance is read from your account. The BAT balance you see in the Brave Rewards interface is a reflection of BAT you have inside your custodial account. 
   
   
3. You can add externally-purchased BAT to be used in Brave Rewards. Since your BAT balance is connected to your custodial account, you can purchase BAT elsewhere, deposit it into your custodial account, then have access to that BAT in Brave Rewards. You can use your externally-purchased BAT to contribute to your favorite Brave creators, for example.

List of custodial partners

Brave is currently partnered with three different custodial account providers:

• Gemini 
• Uphold
• bitFlyer (Japan only)
• ZebPay (India only)

Support for verifying your Brave Rewards profile varies by custodian and region. You can find a list of supported regions for each custodian in this support article.

Notes

In the past, being "connected" used to be called "verified".