Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin Faucet is at low 40s, it was under 40 before.

Is Bitcoin Faucet funded by donation alone?

Now that bitcoin is so valuable, people are not donating, i guess.

Woah, that's odd.  It was at 150 a day or two ago when I checked out of curiosity.  Perhaps someone's been abusing it?

I just bought 55 coins through paypal a few minutes ago,
5 just went to the faucet ;)

Maybe someone has broken the captcha? it seems very weak...

I just sent him another 10.

But maybe it's time to reduce the payout to 0.03 coins.

or 0.005 if the full precission patch causes the 0.3.21 to be released

OT: gavin could you, please, consider adding a link to http://www.bitcoinmonitor.com/ on the line where you write about up to 30 minutes for the donations to appear? :) i thin the monitor also displays broadcasted transactions and does not wait for confirmations. faucet transactions look quite nice there p.ex.

Thanks for the donations, everybody!

Catching up on questions:

Is the faucet supported entirely by donations?  Not entirely-- the captchas have generated about $100, which will go into refilling it.  It looks like captcha revenue is only covering about 1/4 of the cost of the coins, although the company that does the money-for-captchas is a startup looking for more advertisers.  Actually, if you want to advertise a bitcoin-related business you should talk to them... (they're adscaptcha.com)

Was somebody abusing the faucet?   Yep, somebody was exploiting a weakness in my IPv6-handling code.  I've fixed the weakness (the faucet is now much stricter about what it considers "different" IPv6 addresses), but I think I'm fighting a losing battle-- the next step will be to require you to login with a valid google account to get coins.  I hate to add another hoop to jump through...

Is it time to reduce the payout?  Maybe soon, but I'd rather wait until the next release is out and then reduce the payouts another factor of 10 (so 'standard' payout if balance was above 500BTC would be 0.05BTC, and 0.005 when it was running low).

Can I add a link to bitcoinmonitor.com?   Done.

A /48 block of IPv6 addresses is very easily obtained;  anything less strict than that could be easily abused I should imagine.  I'd wary of restricting access to anything by IPv4 or IPv6 address at all;  anyone in a large DHCP pool or at a site with large IP assignment (like a university campus) will likely try to connect from many IPs or physical machines.

I noticed this transaction today which looks somewhat suggestive of someone abusing the faucet -- I guess the zero fee (below the default for >=4kB transaction?) means they also wanted to hold on to every penny they'd accumulated:

• http://blockexplorer.com/tx/d737c270d090a8f0b01b6ea333123017af9bb157b6dc12f5df38d05c6f8b89bc

As for changing the faucet 'payout', I don't see why it can't just just calculate a fixed fraction of whatever's available at the time, rounded, and then clamped between safe minimum/maximum values.  It shouldn't need much manual adjustment then.  Abuse of the pool would lower the payout, making it less worthwhile, but preserving funds to keep the faucet functional for users just wanting to get started on bitcoin and play around.  And the payout would react sensibly to changes in BTC value (because that would affect donations, and hence the available funds).

Also I was wonder if the faucet could offer a 'include transaction fee' option whereby a portion of the faucet payout would be used to pay a transaction fee.  Or eventually even make a very small fee compulsory, marking a shift away from free transactions.

Having an "include transaction fee" option (with explanation) would be useful to introduce newbies to the fee feature.

Maybe a different approach can be used, like the benefitiary making some small tasks before receiving faucet, something like this :

- Register to this forum
- Post about bitcoin in another, general talk forum, embed the bitcoin video there.
- Post a link to that post here.
- Get a "faucet receive code" for this task.
- Get faucet btc.

btw, 20 btc just sent to the faucet  ;)

http://witcoin.com/charity/The-Bitcoin-Faucet (http://witcoin.com/charity/The-Bitcoin-Faucet)

Consider including the faucet in your witcoin activities so you automatically donate as you use the site.

I just downloaded the bitcoin client today. 4741khash/s, whatever that means. anyways I did the faucet thing and entered my address, but didn't recieve anything yet. I have a fairly fast gaming system and it's been about an hour since I started up the client. keep waiting?

If the faucet said it sent them then the transaction will be included in a recent block. You are downloading the blocks from oldest to newest so you'll probably see it in a few hours.

After the initial download (~118,000 blocks) you just get new blocks as they come ~1/10 minutes.

Yes. Your client must show something like '117894 blocks' in status bar, then you'll see faucet transaction.

It was flying through the blocks until it got to 114688 then it just stopped. I didn't restart or touch anything.

yes :)

Does it still say 8 connections?

All good now. Just had to wait, I am impatient  :D

Specialized programs can be used with your GPU. You'll have much better results.

I think the Faucet payout could be reduced.

The point is to verify and test that transactions work. And for this, you do not need a large amount. I'd be happy with 0.0001. I went to the faucet and got my 0.05 bitcoins, later I transferred back 0.15 bitcoins.

The less the sum is, the less the incentive is for people to try and cheat their way.

Great service!

According to the Bitcoin wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fee), there is a default transaction fee for sending amounts less than 0.01 BTC.


The article states this is for version 0.3.17 of the Bitcoin client. 0.3.20 is the current version, though, so I'm not sure if this information is out of date.

I just started with Bitcoin and find it facinating.  I am waiting for the first balance to show from all the blocks I am processing (I have a pretty decent machine ... how long until some results at ~5050 khash/s set to system priority low, which should probably be the default?).  Anyway, I received my 0.05 bitcoin transaction from the faucet and then today I sent it back as I just needed to verify that my system was setup correctly.  I sent it back a few minutes ago when encountering this thread, so it is as of yet unconfirmed.   I urge everybody who received anything from the faucet to send their bitcoins back.  I will donate to the faucet when I accumulate some coins and have had some time to determine the usefulness of the bitcoin economy in general (certainly better than have a currency backed by the Federal Reserve!  :o ).

It might take like forever till you generate a block using your cpu (check here: http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php). The increasing block count is the block chain you're downloading from the other users. Most mining today is done using high end graphic cards as it's way more effective (faster & and needs less energy). You need to download a seperate mining program to do this. What graphic card do you have?

Yes, I have since read that CPU is not the way to go.  I am now using poclbm-gui and am seeing ~113Mhash/s.

Of course, I will have to stop this thing when I use the computer for graphically intensive purposes :)

When I started mining, I had the same plan. What happened is that it made me stop doing graphically intensive stuff :D

Because I can only use cpu, it is making me want to find a way to build a better system!

I have another machine in the basement which blew it's power supply.  I can put a "spare" overclocked 460GTX card in it.  I just might make that a project as well :)  This mining this is rather addictive :)

You got it.

But there are worse things you could be doing than saving the world from the perils of centralised fiat currencies controlled by meglamaniacal banksters.

Agreed .. fiat currency is probably THE LARGEST NATIONAL THREAT TO THE USA right now.  And our congress is euphoric with spending lust.  I like how they claim low inflation when they conveniently exclude fuel and food.  Bitcoin is not the answer on its own, but it is a step and an example of a a solution and the direction that we should be headed.  The Federal Reserve must be eliminated plain and simple.  But now I digress.

Bump
It's running dry again.

Let's donate!

is there a bitcoin Faucet anywhere?

you could try http://dailybitcoins.org/ (http://dailybitcoins.org/) for some free bitcoins. Bitcoin faucet is out of action as far as i know

Wow that is quite amazing but expected as so many people have been taking up all the satoshi from the bitcoin faucets. In reality bitcoin faucets are such a waste of time and you barely get any bitcoin as one satoshi is like a ten millionth of a bitcoin. Such a waste of time!

What a blast from the past to recycle this old thread. Some things never change, Gavin wanted to identify users with their Google accounts to stop people from exploiting his code and sucking the faucet dry, and lately he wanted to infringe on people's anonymity with his partnership with Mike Hearn too. ^hmmmm^ I always thought he donated most of the money to his faucet and now realize there was Ad income and donations from other people. Glad you revived this post, very informative. ^smile^

Wooaaw really not 2016 !

That was big money back then....February 2011 bitcoin finally reached $1 US  (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=bitcoin%20price%20april%202011) so he spent $55 and put 5 bucks (about $2100 worth today) in the faucet!  Wow, we've come a long way!  This really put's things in perspective.  Love these old threads....nice find!

... yeah it is pretty funny, Theymos wanted to introduce people to the "fees feature" in 2011 :)

faucet will run dry eventually. Who will give away so much bitcoins through a faucet?? It is the most expensive currency.

faucets was always a waste of time and nowdays it is even more. most of the faucets are offering around 25- 100 satoshis which doesn't really have much value. It is better to use altcoins faucet now like peercoin or dogecoin. At least you will ear bit more money.

Just think of how much money you'd have today if you took advantage of those faucets back then!  It's all relative when one thinks about it.  Faucet earnings today could be worth a fortune in the future.  I wonder how many people are storing up all them small faucet earnings today hoping that bitcoin's value keeps increasing at the rate it has been?  If you snooze, you lose!

If only you kept those 5 you'd have a good bit more cash now.

 Bitcoin Faucet is running dry?

Yes it is, why? maybe be it is because very time consuming by getting the faucets.
and then once you get your the reward its just a small amount of satoshi.
but for a beginner it will be a nice start up for them to get Bitcoins for free. :)

I think bitcoin faucets are running dry because of both type of peoples.
The Users of faucets and the owners of faucets too.
nowadays faucets have no any worth and using them is completely waste of time. and same faucets owners can't able to run faucets properly and give enough reward since google adsense blocking all faucets ads.
this is the big reason why faucets are running dry.

Are you saying Goggle are blocking adsense adverts advertising Faucets or the adverts on the Faucet sites themselves? If so, why. I thought they weren't meant to be 'evil'.

yes, the nature of a faucet is against google adsense terms of services and that is why they don't allow them to use it in the first place and then bans them if they find out.

p.s. this topic is from 2011 by the way ;D

faucet wasn't running because of donation,faucet basically was made in order to gain or multiply the owners btc through advertisement,saying giving btc for free is bullshit if they still inserting an ads,it's like exchanging your time / click to the ads for few btc

The way faucets are supposed to work is for them to pay less when the price is high... remember when faucets started, some faucets paid like 1 bitcoin every hour... now we are down to 200 Satoshi's

per hour as a average payout. It's just the way these faucets work, to balance the income against the profits being made from the advertising side. I know at one stage Freebitco.in paid over 1000/h

when the price were at $200 last year... it's now down to 200 - 300 Sat/h.  ::)

Even at 200-300 Satoshi, many faucets are actually running at a loss. Many dries out very fast and never able to top up in time for the users.

Nevertheless they are serving their purpose for beginners to get some "free" coins to try out.

i guess this is wrong sectio,this should post on begginer and help section. faucet dry if people who have build that faucet no more have funds or they think faucet no longer make profit,because faucet always depend on visitor with ads.

Running a faucet just isn't profitable anymore. The market is so saturated and only newbies use faucets. Many of these newbies are kids, thinking they can get rich by making a hundredth of a cent an hour.

I think not only kids are claiming in faucet almost newbies are claiming cents..its useless for now to claim because its late that they can make fast bitcoin in faucet and its waste of time.. and many claimers still learning how bitcoin works.. and i think they will realize that in the future that claiming  faucet is not worth it.

Yeah it is about 2 days ago. I only can get very2 small amount from faucet, although I use two faucet aplication in my Android. And I saw so many advertisement on that.

Yeah many newbies are always thinking that the faucet is one of the best way to earn a lot of bitcoin but they didn't know that the faucet now are worthless because it is hard now to earn like the equal amount of your expenses in electricity and internet.

Well, not really. Bitcoin faucets are usually for profit and the owners fund their own faucets. This is especially true with faucetbox faucets, the owners get paid via their advertisement earnings.

Not odd that bitcoin faucets are running dry, because of the price spike :)

Yes, unfortunately, now, due to increased Bitcoins, many faucets are disappearing or are paid very little. They are beginning to bear little income to their owners.
Began to appear scam faucets who do not pay at all.
I think that will soon disappear entirely faucets. After all, the owners get to their payments in the normal currency, and pay cryptocurrency. And it shall come, that will pay more than earn.

One of the another reason for bitcoin faucet dryness is that the current bitcoin price. Since the price is high it is difficult for the  faucets owner to keep the faucets avaiable all the time. Most of the faucets has decreased the rewards also.

the prices increase really giving affect to faucet because the amount of btc they spend equivalent to dollar is increased in other side their ads only paying in dollar currency,but it doesn't give affect if they're using ads which pay them with btc

may just tap the site that does not get revenue from ads that can cover the expenses of the claim. so they do not add bitcoin on the faucet wallet. then the faucet is dry

They put many advertisement to equalize their expenses or to make a little profit but i think now doing some faucet is not a good option because of they are paying lesser amount than they give before :(.

Maybe some of those faucets are getting bankrupt so they were getting dry as you are saying but i think most of them are reducing their reward because of the halving if they dont do that their faucet will gets bankrupt too so it is necessary for them to do that . We dont have to complain about it  ;D

Faucets are a waste of time, it's just way too little money/reward to even bother with in my opinion. Join a sognatire campaign or simply just buy & HODL bitcoin's to make huge profits in the future. 

Maybe the bankrupt because the adds on their faucets is not work anymore, so they stop the faucets and also the price of bitcoin is incease so high right now, it's make the rates for faucets become so low.