>They did append their affiliate id to type-ins for a single crypto exchange once

They didn't do this either. There was an omnibox site suggestion that included an affiliate id. Nothing got appended and people were able to see the affiliate id before hitting enter to visit the site. These site suggestions could also be disabled in the settings.

Brave collected crypto donations on behalf of unsuspecting online creators and pocketed them. As far as I'm concerned that's as bad as fraud.