Brave is self updating software, uses Google as the default search engine, has built-in telemetry, and even has an opt-out rss-like news feed similar to Firefox Pocket. These shouldn't be the things that come to mind if someone were to imagine a privacy oriented browser.
On June 6, 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the address bar, which earns Brave money. Further research revealed that Brave redirects the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites, too. In response to the backlash from the users, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting".[43][44]
Two days later Brave released a new version which they said disabled the auto-completion to partner links,[45] followed by a blog post explaining the issue and apologizing.[46]