What Is a Crypto Faucet?

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Crypto faucets are apps or websites that give out small crypto rewards in exchange for completing simple tasks. The term “faucet” highlights the fact that these sites only give out a tiny “drop” of crypto payouts. Faucets were never intended to make people crypto millionaires. Instead, these applications gave out a bit of Bitcoin to people in the hopes that they would learn and use these digital assets.

The prominent Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen invented the concept of a crypto faucet. Interestingly, Andresen’s initial Bitcoin faucet rewarded people with up to five BTC per day. Estimates also suggest that Andresen gave away about 19,700 bitcoins on his faucet in 2010, which was worth only $15.76 at the time. However, if it were this situation at the time of writing, Anderson would have lost more than $500 million!

Understandably, today’s crypto faucets no longer give away such generous rewards. Indeed, most faucets now measure their rewards in “Satoshis,” which refers to the smallest increment of one bitcoin.

One Satoshi equals 0.00000001 BTC (or 0.0002 USD if BTC is worth $20,000). So, if you were to earn 100 Satoshis from playing a game on a faucet, you’d have 0.000001 BTC (0.02 USD if BTC is $20,000 per coin).

Every crypto faucet has different rules for earning and redeeming crypto, but all require users to have a private crypto wallet. When you want to claim your rewards on a faucet, you submit the public wallet address for whatever token you want as a reward.

For example, if your crypto faucet offers Dogecoin rewards, you’ll supply your public wallet address for DOGE. Eventually, you’ll see the DOGE tokens appear in your private wallet.

What’s the purpose of crypto faucets?

The primary goal of crypto faucets is to spread awareness of cryptocurrency. In the early 2010s, few people knew about Bitcoin, and even fewer knew how to buy, trade, and store it. Developers created faucets as a fun way to encourage people to give cryptocurrency a “test run.”

By making it easy to claim small amounts of crypto on these faucets, it helped get more people involved in the crypto space.

While crypto faucets continue to get newcomers involved with cryptocurrency, they also encourage users to take polls, watch ads, or test new video games. Most faucets make money from referrals and advertisements, so they have a financial incentive to get users to engage with partner projects.

How do crypto faucets work?

Before signing up for a crypto faucet, users need a private wallet that supports the faucet’s crypto. For example, if you’re interested in a faucet’s crypto reward, you must have a wallet that supports crypto. When it comes time to claim your crypto, you’ll have to copy and paste the public address in your wallet to the faucet’s website.

Every crypto faucet has different rules for claiming rewards. Often, you’ll have to hit a minimum threshold in crypto before you can send anything to your wallet address. For instance, you may need to rack up $3 worth of rewards before the site allows you to claim your tokens.

How to earn crypto rewards

There are many options that crypto faucets offer for racking up points. Here are a few of the most common ones:

Solving captchas: The simplest way to earn points on most crypto faucets is to verify you’re a human by submitting captchas. Usually, you can only complete captchas a few times daily, and they tend to pay the lowest rewards.
Watching videos: Some crypto faucets allow you to redeem points for watching videos and ads on a streaming platform.
Taking polls: Crypto faucets often offer small crypto rewards for people who complete online surveys, quizzes, or polls.
Playing games: You might be able to claim faucet rewards for downloading a video game app and testing it.
Referral programs: Most crypto faucets will give you bonus points if you get a friend or family member to create an account with your referral link.

Crypto faucets vs. crypto airdrops

Crypto airdrops are another way to earn free digital tokens, but they’re different from crypto faucets.

With a crypto airdrop, new projects send their cryptocurrency or NFTs (non-fungible tokens) directly to a person’s wallet address. The goal of a crypto airdrop is usually to generate hype around an upcoming project or reward prior users, liquidity providers, or long-term token holders.

Some projects use the promise of crypto airdrops to get people to spread their names on social media. Others may use crypto airdrops to steal market share from a competing dApp (decentralized application). Whatever the specific case is, airdrops are generally marketing techniques for small crypto projects.

In contrast, crypto faucets have always been concerned with getting people involved in the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. Most crypto faucets only offer rewards in established currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH).

What are the risks of using crypto faucet apps?

One feature both crypto faucets and airdrops share is that they’re prone to scams. Offering free crypto is always tempting, especially for people new to Web3. Unfortunately, scammers can set up a fake free crypto faucet website as a way of stealing personal information from users.

Some crypto faucets require users to input an email address, which can give scammers valuable information for spam or phishing attacks. It’s also possible that hackers can attack a poorly managed faucet.

Before signing up for a crypto faucet site, you must do plenty of research on the platform. How long has this faucet been around? Does it have a good reputation in the crypto industry? Are there a lot of followers on social media? The greater a crypto faucet’s prominence, the better chance it’s offering legitimate rewards.

Also, always remember that crypto faucets will never give away significant rewards. You should only expect to earn a few hundred Satoshis per month from using one of these sites. If a crypto faucet advertises unrealistic returns, it’s probably a scam.

For added safety, it’s best to create a separate email and wallet address just for faucet rewards. This way, if your faucet turns out to be a scam, you don’t stand to lose as much.

Crypto faucet examples

Here are the three largest crypto faucets (at the time of writing):

Cointiply: Cointiply is arguably the most prominent and respected crypto faucet online. With roughly 3 million users, this faucet has a big following and offers dozens of ways to earn crypto. Cointiply also has a relatively long history going back to 2018.

After setting up an account on your desktop or Android phone, Cointiply users can watch ads, submit captchas, or participate in polls to redeem rewards. Currently, you can select crypto rewards in Bitcoin, Dash, Litecoin, or Dogecoin.

You need to have $3 worth of Dash, Litecoin, or Dogecoin to make a withdrawal. If you want Bitcoin, Cointiply requires that you have at least $5 of BTC in your account.

FireFaucet: While not as large as Cointiply, FireFaucet offers 13 token rewards ranging from BTC and ETH to ADA and BNB. After creating an account, FireFaucet will allow you to earn rewards similar to sites like Cointiply. FireFaucet also has a ranking system that tracks everyone’s activity and rewards those who are the most active.

The minimum threshold to redeem rewards from FireFaucet depends on what crypto you want. For instance, you can withdraw 0.0003 BTC or 0.006 ETH. Remember to review the specifics of whatever token you’re interested in if you want to use FireFaucet.

FreeBitcoin.io: FreeBitcoin.io is another well-known faucet that has been around since 2018. On this website, users can play a simple game once per hour for the chance to win anything from a few Satoshis to $300 worth of Bitcoin. People can also use promo codes and referral links to boost their Bitcoin rewards on this website.

FreeBitcoin.io offers a minimum withdrawal of 0.0002 BTC.

Wrapping up

Crypto faucets probably won’t replace your day job, but they can be a fun way to earn free tokens with minimal effort. People with zero experience with crypto may enjoy using a crypto faucet to get their feet wet in Web3. These sites can give newcomers a way to interact with crypto without the fear of losing hard-earned money. Always remember to triple-check that the crypto faucet you’re using has a long track record and a solid reputation in the crypto community.

At Worldcoin, we aim to encourage more people to interact with cryptocurrencies. We intend to put a share of our crypto in the hands of everyone for free. We’re also airdropping free DAI to anyone who downloads our app. To learn more about Worldcoin’s mission, subscribe to our blog.