Yes. Like, you are a laughably wrong. I can literally see the Brave “shield” icon staring right back at me right there in the bottom right of the screen.
I guess you must be in the EU and on iOS 17.4 or later. I forgot the Apple were forced to allow other browser engines to be installed in the EU recently.
But aside from that recent exception, no one ever had anything except Safari on iOS, even if they thought otherwise.
You haven't been blocking them, because iOS with Safari didn't allow that.
Hiding, and blocking, are not the same thing. The former is far less secure than the latter.
As for blocking ads on iOS with Brave, well, it really doesn't work that well[0]. Why? Because iOS doesn't let you block ads, unless you are in the EU and on 17.4 or later.
You should exit the RDF and really do at least a bare minimum of research.
Just because Brave calls it blocking, doesn't mean it is blocking.
Again, just do some god-damn research. Really, the bare minimum. It isn't news to anyone educated on this stuff that Apple has never* allowed proper ad blocking until recently in the EU.
But, believe whatever you want. I get being too scared to leave that ever so comfy RDF you found yourself in.
Blame Mozilla. Most iOS browsers have built-in adblocking.