Bitcoins are all over the headlines, but did you know there are websites that pay out "free" Bitcoins for visiting them or doing tasks? They're called Bitcoin faucets, and they're a great way for you to get into Bitcoins without mining, wiring money to a Bitcoin exchange, or buying through LocalBitcoins.
Before we get to the faucets, Bitcoin is a virtual crypto currency—I penned a Bitcoin primer a while back if you're looking for more information. Bitcoin faucets aren't going to make you rich, but these are faucets that I can personally attest pay out when and how they say they will as I've collected 0.12 BTC from them.
This also seems like a good place to mention that I'm presenting a Bitcoin session at Macworld/iWorld 2014.
The first Bitcoin faucets were designed as promotional vehicles to get people interested and involved in Bitcoins back when a Bitcoin was worth a few pennies. A few people who had tons of Bitcoins that weren't worth much at the time thought that if they got them into the hands of more people, it would generate interest.
Today's so-called faucets are much more of a business model. Most of them work by paying out tiny fractions of a Bitcoin in exchange for loading a page full of ads or for watching videos. I also have one site to show you that's not a faucet, per se, but rather a site that pays Bitcoins in exchange for doing crowd-sourced tasks.
Terms:
µBTC/uBTC is a micro Bitcoin, or 0.000001BTC.
A satoshi is currently the smallest fraction of a Bitcoin, or 0.00000001BTC.
You'll need a Bitcoin wallet, either a standalone client wallet or a wallet from a service like Blockchain.info.
Cheat Sheet
If you don't need the full rundown on each site below, here are quick links in order of my preference.
Freebitco.in
FreeBitcoinz.com
BitVisitor
BitcoinGet
DailyBitcoins
MMOClub.com Faucet
BitcoinFaucet.tk
Bitcoiner.net and Litecoiner.net
New Faucets
Señor Bitcoin
Can Has Bitcoin
FaucetBTC
The Descriptions in Full
Freebitco.in
This is my favorite faucet because it has an element of gamble without any risk. Once an hour you can "roll," and a random number generator tosses back a number between 1 and 10,000. In the screenshot below, you can see the payout table based on that number.
Better yet, you can see that my most recent roll was three points away from a bigger payout. So close! I have received two larger payouts, so I believe that it's truly a random number generator. Since 1 in 10,000 pays out more than 0.2BTC, every roll is exciting.
Payouts happen once a week, and I've earned more than 0.001BTC in the last several weeks. There are all sorts of stats to look at, both personal and site-wide.
FreeBitco.in
FreeBitco.in Screenshots
FreeBitcoinz.com
I can now verify that this faucet pays once a week after you've reached 100,000 satoshis, or 0.001BTC. They offer 1,000 satoshis once a day, but you can earn another 1,000 satoshis once per day by clicking over on the "Extras" tab. You used to have to watch through some offers to get the Extras bonus, but they removed that requirement.
That means it currently takes 50 visits if you hit both the Home page and the Extras page to get your free 0.001BTC, and it takes very little work per visit. The site also offers "Tasks," but these are largely surveys and offers from third party companies wanting your personal info. I don't recommend doing that sort of thing.
In the screenshot below, note my balance in the lower right corner.
FreeBitcoinZ.com
FreeBitcoinz.com Screenshots
BitVisitor
I like BitVisitor for two reasons. The first is that it pays, and the second is that I've been exposed to some new things from their advertisers. BitVisitor pays from µ0.8BTC to µ4BTC for loading up a webpage. You have to leave it up for five minutes, and you don't get credit until you click a green "Next" button that appears after the five minutes have elapsed.
The amounts vary as the price of BTC rises and falls. The prizes above are the most current, as January 17th.
You can earn a maximum of µ100BTC per day, and BitVisitor won't always have pages for you to load. I've earned more than 0.02BTC there over the last several weeks. You don't have to pay attention to the webpages, of course, but I tend to notice new ones as they come in, so I'd say it works for the advertisers.
This is what it looks like:
BitVisitor
BitVisitor Screenshots
BitcoinGet
This is the site that's paid me the most—I've earned 0.066BTC in the last several weeks—but it's also the site that has required the most effort. BitcoinGet pays for three things, crowd-sourced tasks, watching videos, and a category called "Special Offers" for filling out surveys and giving all your personal information to third-party companies. I don't recommend the last option, but the first two work just fine.
Watching videos hasn't worked for me lately, and I suspect that it's a Mac support issue. This doesn't pay well enough for me to hassle with digging into why—µ6BTC per video—but in that the videos can play in the background, it is essentially free money if it works on your system (advertisers are essentially paying to boost their YouTube view count).
Performing tasks is the thing that some people will find interesting. These range from doing Google searches, recording search result ranking and offering feedback on web design, to determining the meaning of a passage of text, to trying different CAPTCHA methods, to flagging adult images, to checking for expiration dates on deals.
The key here is to only do tasks that are worth your time. If a task pays µ6BTC and takes 10 minutes, you're wasting your time. That said, with today's BTC value in the US$700-$800 range, some tasks pay as much as µ180BTC and take very little time. They still might not be worth your time on an hourly basis, but if your goal is to get Bitcoins without paying cash, free is free.
Please note that the tasks are refreshed throughout the day. If you find a task you like doing, come back tomorrow at the same time and you'll probably find it again.
Lastly, note that prices paid float up and down as the price of Bitcoin changes. They pay once a day when you accumulate more than µ100BTC, and it's regular as clockwork.
BitcoinGet
BitcoinGet Screens
DailyBitcoins
This site is closer to a straight faucet. Once an hour you can load the page, enter your Bitcoin wallet address, enter the CAPTCHA, and get µ1BTC. Done and done. But, DailyBitcoins ups the ante a bit by including roughly 600 larger rewards every day, up to 0.01BTC at a time.
There's even a schedule of those prizes—they're metered out every few minutes—so you can optimize your obsessive refreshing along with everyone else. This might not be worth it on an absolute hourly basis, but if you want to get free Bitcoins, it works.
[Update: The number of extra prizes has been halved from my original post to 600 per day, while traffic to the site seems to be increasing. This makes it much harder to get the larger prizes.]
DailyBitcoins pays will pay out within 24 hours once you reach a balance of 0.0001BTC. If you're going to use this site regularly, take the time to register so that it will remember your Bitcoin wallet address.
Daily Bitcoins
DailyBitcoins Screenshots
MMOClub.com Faucet
This faucet is a side project for a company that buys and sells online game currency. I've never done any business with that part of the company and am not endorsing it one way or another, but their faucet works and they pay. The page is loaded up with ads, but that's what's paying for the faucet.
It's an hourly faucet that pays between 100 and 500 satoshis (see the terms above for how much that is). You can trigger a manual payout once you've accumulated 10,000 (or more) satoshis, or 0.00001BTC. Payouts are sometimes instant and sometimes take a few hours.
Tip: the faucet tells you exactly how many satoshis are loaded up at any given moment. Only trigger a manual payout when the faucet has enough satoshis loaded to cover your payout.
MMOClub.com Faucet
MMOClub.com Faucet Screenshots
BitcoinFaucet.tk
When I first posted this guide, this was a new faucet, but I can now confirm that it pays. It's a 6-hour faucet, and in a few days I've accumulated 0.0001BTC over three weeks.
It's pretty straight forward. Load the page, enter your Bitcoin wallet address, enter the CAPTCHA, and come back in six hours.
BitcoinFaucet.tk
BitcoinFaucet.tk Screenshot
Bitcoiner.net and Litecoiner.net
Bitcoiner.net is a daily faucet, and as such you won't accumulate Bitcoins very fast. In a couple few weeks, I've earned 0.0002BTC. It's also ad-supported, and as such requires little more than a few seconds a day.
There's a random element and a long-term reward program, too. The amount offered is reset every hour (the 24-hour cycle begins at midnight GMT), so if the amount being offered in any particular hour is too low, come back later.
There's also a "prize multiplier." It's a little weird, so let me explain. When you check that you want an "automatic payout," the site pays out once you reach 0.00013BTC. But, every day that you check that box (when submitting), you get a cumulative prize multiplier of 0.05x per day, starting at 1x and up to a maximum of 2x cumulative.
The thing is you get a message that says, "you've checked the 'I want a payout today', but you haven't accumulated [the] required 0.00013 BTC." It sounds like you did something wrong, but you didn't. Just do it every time, and whatever amount is on the screen gets multiplied before being added to your total.
Tip: Payout amounts currently range from a low of 0.00000220BTC to 0.00000500BTC (that I've seen). I pull the trigger any time I see a payout above 0.00000440BTC. As noted above, that amount is then multiplied by the multiplier before being added to your balance.
Bitcoiner.net Screenshots
Bitcoiner.net - Make sure you check that "I want a payout today" checkbox each time!
It has a sister site called Litecoiner.net that pays out in Litecoins. Litecoin, or LTC, is the biggest so-called "alt-coin," the catch-all name for Bitcoin copycats. LTC tends to be worth from 1 percent to 3 percent of a Bitcoin. You'll need a separate Litecoin wallet and address to use that site.
Three New Sites - Señor Bitcoin, Can Has Bitcoin, and FaucetBTC
I have a trio of sites to tell you about at the same time, Señor Bitcoin, Can Has Bitcoin, and FaucetBTC. All three sites are operated by the same company, and they all pay out together.
Firstly, they are 30 minute faucets, meaning you can return to them every half hour and get some free Bitcoins. They pay out very small amounts, however, either 0.0000002BTC or 0.0000006BTC, for a cumulative total of 0.000001BTC if you visit all three sites at the same time—and you can do that twice an hour if you're motivated.
They payout to your BTC address, but they send it to a holding service called CoinBox.me. That site then holds your winnings from all three sites until you reach a total of 0.000055BTC. I can confirm that they pay out to your wallet once you reach that amount.
These sites are quirky, and Can Has Bitcoin is intentionally a throw-back eyesore, but they make it easy to get some free Bitcoins.
Screenshots
Señor Bitcoin, Can Has Bitcoin, and FaucetBTC Screenshots
Conclusion
If you have fiat cash (i.e. dollars or euros) you want to invest in Bitcoins, just buy them. None of these faucets pay out enough to warrant the time you spend. In other words, hitting these faucets is not a job replacement.
But, it's fun and it's easy, and if it's sitting there in the background and you hit them when you're taking a break from work or futzing around on your iPad, it's essentially free bitcoins. Today's 0.01BTC is worth about US$8.00. But if Bitcoin hits $40,000 like the Winkelvoss Twins think it will, that same 0.01BTC would be worth $400.
That would retroactively make the time you spend loading a page and entering some CAPTCHA information a different equation.
And in the meanwhile, you could even use these free Bitcoins to play some online poker.
http://www.macobserver.com/
Bryan Chaffin
