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It may sound shocking now, but in 2010 it was reality.

The creator of website “freebitcoins.appspot.com” where user could collect free Bitcoins is Gavin Andresen. The website is not working anymore. Each of users received 5 Bitcoins per day just by solving captcha. The purpose of this game was to promote cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin itself. Looks like the purpose got fullfilled.

This is how the default page of the faucet looked like.

To fuel the first faucet, Andresen loaded it with 1,100 BTC of his own. After these were given away, the faucet was reloaded, with early bitcoin miners and whales also donating coins.

Andresen said that: “Bitcoins are a new kind of money, and that they aren’t created or controlled by a government like USD or EUR, they’re created and controlled by anybody who wants to be part of the Bitcoin payment network.”

This faucet managed to give away to people 19,700 Bitcoins which is now worth $1,171,852,530.

Here is the Andresens original post about the faucet that he posted in June 11, 2010. I highly recommend you to read it. To imagine that someone gave him back 50 BTCs just because he felt bad for getting 5 for free is ridiculous now.

I thought it would be great idea to share this nice piece of history.

Have a nice day !