Converting free bitcoin to physical silver (no $'s spent)

[Silver Art]

NOTE:  I originally started this thread in the "Service Announcements - Micro Payments" by mistake so I locked that thread and started this thread here since this seemed to be the general discussion of bitcoin related topics.

Hello my name is Silver Art.  I am a new member to Bitcointalk.org (signed up today).  I have been involved with Bitcoin since Novermber 2013 and have been involved with gold and silver (mainly silver) since August 2008. I started getting free bitcoin from the faucets in Summer 2014 but have been spending it on alt coins where I was trading (made a lot of BTC but also lost a lot of BTC).  Starting in January 2015, I got serious with earning bitcoin from the bitcoin faucets with the intent of buying silver with it once I realized that a few online dealers started accepting bitcoin as a direct payment for bullion but was not making as much as I do now because I have seen some of the faucet that I see now.  During this Summer, once I started finding more faucets to earn bitcoin from, then my bitcoin earnings increased a lot.   

Fast forward to this month (December 2015), I obtained enough free bitcoin from the various faucets to buy some physical silver from Provident Metals since they accept bitcoin as a direct payment option.  On December 1, 2015, I used my free bitcoin to buy 3 1-oz Zombucks Saints.  I spent 0.162635 BTC on those three 1-oz Zombucks Saints.  After that purchase, I had $3 worth of bitcoin earnings left so I decided to earn more bitcoin from the faucets.  From December 2, to December 26, 2015 (yesterday), I earned enough bitcoin from the facuets to buy another oz of silver from Provident Metals.  This time I bought a 1-oz Incuse Indian Head silver round.  I spent a total of 0.052479 BTC on that silver round from Provident Metals.  After that 0.052479 BTC purchase, I had 0.00214297 BTC left (approx. 89 cents) in my Coinbase account but I had a couple of faucet payouts this morning and I am waiting on more faucet payout from last week's earnings.  I now have about $1.62 worth of bitcoin earnings in my Coinbase account and should have a lot more by the end of this year going into 2016. 


I use the following bitcoin faucets to make a vast majority of my bitcoin earnings:

1.) Bonus Bitcoin (2 referrals)

2.) Alien Faucet (1 referral)

3.) Bitcoin Zebra (no referrals)

4.) Moon Bitcoin (no referrals)

5.) Faucetbox-based bitcoin faucets (too many to list since a use a lot of them via a bitcoin rotator and most of my earnings are from these types of bitcoin faucets; 1 referral total from all Faucetbox faucets). 


There are some other bitcoin faucets that I use off and on depending how my bitcoin day is going.  I use a Coinbase online wallet as a bitcoin savings account to store my bitcoin earnings.  My current average weekly bitcoin earnings are between 1 million to 1.2 million satoshi per week (approx. 142,800 to 171,400 satoshi per day).  These figures are from my efforts only.  These figures do not include any automatic daily bonusus and it does not include any referral earnings (I do not have many referrals at this point).   


Since I spend a lot of free time at home on the Internet, getting free bitcoin from the Bitcoin faucets made sense to me and I do this while surfing the web and listening to Internet talk radio.  So far, earning bitcoin on the internet has yielded me 4 oz's of physical silver (3 Zombucks silver rounds and 1 Incuse Indian Head silver round) since starting seriously earning bitcoin from the faucets in January 2015.  It is not much but I did not have to spend any $'s out of my wallet to obtain them. 

[odolvlobo]

For comparison, how many ounces of silver could you have earned by spending the same amount of time at a minimum wage job instead? 20? 50? 100?

[Silver Art]

For comparison, how many ounces of silver could you have earned by spending the same amount of time at a minimum wage job instead? 20? 50? 100?

That's a fair statement.  However, this was just a small "think-outside-the-box" way to fund my silver hobby without spending $'s and it does not take much effort at all since I spend a lot of my free time at home on the Internet anyway when I am not working full time at my regular salaried job.  I also want to clarify that I still buy most of my collection with $'s from that full-time salaried job and will continue to do that.  Again, you do bring up a good point but I already have a fulltime job that pays much more than minimum wage.  Getting free bitcoin from the bitcoin faucets is just my way to spend my free time after I get home from work. 

[pawel7777]

How much do those faucets pay per hour/day? Your earnings seem pretty high, unless you earned a lot on referrals, you use bot, or you're glued to the computer 24/7.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, you'll get a lot of criticism like the above but I think it's very cool what you did.  It feels nice to get something 'free', especially precious metals.  And those Zombucks coins are very cool.  Check out those 2 Oz. pirate coins on Provident with the skull if you haven't already.  Good luck in your future endeavors.

[Silver Art]

How much do those faucets pay per hour/day? Your earnings seem pretty high, unless you earned a lot on referrals, you use bot, or you're glued to the computer 24/7.

I do not use bots and I do not have many referrals.  I have 2 referrals on The Bonus Bitcoin and 1 referral on the Alien Faucet and 1 referral on one of the Faucetbox bitcoin faucets that I use.  I hope to increase my referrals at a later date.  

Actually, there are people who earn more than I do but they have a lot more referrals that I do.

As for my bitcoin earnings being "high", that is subjective.  For me, on the weekends I earn more bitcoin from the faucets since I have the weekend off from my regular full time job.  On most weekends, I can earn between 200,000 to 300,00 satoshi if I am at home most of the time.  During the weekday and depending on how early I wake up before I go to work and how many hours I have left before I have to sleep when I get home after I leave work, I can make a total of between 100,000 and 185,000 satoshi a day Monday thru Friday.  If I am working overtime at my job (usually working between 10-12 hours a day), then those earnings will be a lot less since I would home less when working overtimr at my regular job.  

As for spending time on the computer on the Internet, I do a lot of listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the Internet and posting on forums so it works out perfectly for me.  In other words, if bitcoin and bitcoin faucets did not exist, I still would be...............Listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the web and posting on forums.  I do not go out very much outside of work.  

[HabBear]

"Not spending $'s" isn't the right metric to focus on. Time is the correct metric (since you spend your time in return for the precious Dollars you're not willing to spend on Bitcoin).

What ever job will pay the most for your time is the job that should help you fund your Bitcoin or Silver or whatever hobby. Faucets pay nothing...the lottery angle is appealing but there's no proof that the lotteries are fair. There's probably something better you could do with your time to earn Bitcoin/Silver/Dollars, etc.

[Silver Art]

OP, you'll get a lot of criticism like the above but I think it's very cool what you did.  It feels nice to get something 'free', especially precious metals.  And those Zombucks coins are very cool.  Check out those 2 Oz. pirate coins on Provident with the skull if you haven't already.  Good luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you.  I do not mind the criticism.  I realize that I am not going to make a lot of bitcoin doing this but I do not need a lot of bitcoin to buy an oz of physical silver.  I am planning to keep my day job. 

I felt good about my bitcoin earnings when I realized that that I earned enough free bitcoin from the faucets to buy those 3 Zombucks and it made me feel pumped about doing this.  I felt even better 3 weeks later when I used my free bitcoin to buy a 1-oz Incuse Indian Head silver round.   

Speaking of earnings, I have obtained about 102,000 satoshi worth of bitcoin for today so far.  I probably should end up with at least 200,00 satoshi before I quit at 11:50 PM tonight (U.S. Eastern Time).   

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, you'll get a lot of criticism like the above but I think it's very cool what you did.  It feels nice to get something 'free', especially precious metals.  And those Zombucks coins are very cool.  Check out those 2 Oz. pirate coins on Provident with the skull if you haven't already.  Good luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you.  I do not mind the criticism.  I realize that I am not going to make a lot of bitcoin doing this but I do not need a lot of bitcoin to buy an oz of physical silver.  I am planning to keep my day job. 

I felt good about my bitcoin earnings when I realized that that I earned enough free bitcoin from the faucets to buy those 3 Zombucks and it made me feel pumped about doing this.  I felt even better 3 weeks later when I used my free bitcoin to buy a 1-oz Incuse Indian Head silver round.   

Speaking of earnings, I have obtained about 102,000 satoshi worth of bitcoin for today so far.  I probably should end up with at least 200,00 satoshi before I quit at 11:50 PM tonight (U.S. Eastern Time).   

OP, if you read any of my posts, I rarely ever recommend this to newbies, but you should check out signature campaigns here on bitcointalk which is where you rent out part of your user profile (the signature part, specifically) to earn btc.  Newbies don't earn a lot but you can earn way more than 100K satoshis in a day.  And I don't recommend this often, because sig campaigners are notorious for spamming stupid nonsense just to get paid.  I try not to do this. 

Anyway, an economically rational person would weigh time far more heavily than you, but you worked extremely hard for those Zombucks coins and I bet it feels good.

[Cyaren]

It's better than nothing. When i have spare time I'd rather browse through faucets and earn a buck a day than watching TV or sleep. Good luck on your future silver purchases OP!

[Silver Art]

"Not spending $'s" isn't the right metric to focus on. Time is the correct metric (since you spend your time in return for the precious Dollars you're not willing to spend on Bitcoin).

What ever job will pay the most for your time is the job that should help you fund your Bitcoin or Silver or whatever hobby. Faucets pay nothing...the lottery angle is appealing but there's no proof that the lotteries are fair. There's probably something better you could do with your time to earn Bitcoin/Silver/Dollars, etc.

I was looking at it from the stand point of the fact that I spend a lot of free time at home anyway on the computer on the Internet doing the things that I like to do on the Internet such as listen to Internet talk radio, surf the web and post on forums.  I was doing these things for many years before I heard of bitcoin and now that bitcoin exists and bitcoin faucets exist, then I can earn bitcoin doing the same things that I have been doing before bitcoin was created.  In other words, I am not going out of my way to do this.  It just happened to work out that way for me and I am taking advantage of that.  

When I say no $ spent, I just meant that I gain an oz of silver without spending any $'s from my wallet.  That is the metric that I prefer to focus on.  As I have mentioned, the silver collecting is just a hobby.  I am not stacking for SHTF.  I just like collecting certain silver coins/bars and doing this is just another way to fund my hobby while I can still do the things that I normally do at home on the Internet.  

[Silver Art]

OP, you'll get a lot of criticism like the above but I think it's very cool what you did.  It feels nice to get something 'free', especially precious metals.  And those Zombucks coins are very cool.  Check out those 2 Oz. pirate coins on Provident with the skull if you haven't already.  Good luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you.  I do not mind the criticism.  I realize that I am not going to make a lot of bitcoin doing this but I do not need a lot of bitcoin to buy an oz of physical silver.  I am planning to keep my day job. 

I felt good about my bitcoin earnings when I realized that that I earned enough free bitcoin from the faucets to buy those 3 Zombucks and it made me feel pumped about doing this.  I felt even better 3 weeks later when I used my free bitcoin to buy a 1-oz Incuse Indian Head silver round.   

Speaking of earnings, I have obtained about 102,000 satoshi worth of bitcoin for today so far.  I probably should end up with at least 200,00 satoshi before I quit at 11:50 PM tonight (U.S. Eastern Time).   

OP, if you read any of my posts, I rarely ever recommend this to newbies, but you should check out signature campaigns here on bitcointalk which is where you rent out part of your user profile (the signature part, specifically) to earn btc.  Newbies don't earn a lot but you can earn way more than 100K satoshis in a day.  And I don't recommend this often, because sig campaigners are notorious for spamming stupid nonsense just to get paid.  I try not to do this. 

Anyway, an economically rational person would weigh time far more heavily than you, but you worked extremely hard for those Zombucks coins and I bet it feels good.

Based on the very few referrals that I have I am starting to see the power of "passive bitcoin income".  I did not know about the renting out of sig lines and I was not sure of the rules regarding that for a newbie such as myself since I do not have a lot of posts.   I will check this out.  Thank you. 

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, you'll get a lot of criticism like the above but I think it's very cool what you did.  It feels nice to get something 'free', especially precious metals.  And those Zombucks coins are very cool.  Check out those 2 Oz. pirate coins on Provident with the skull if you haven't already.  Good luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you.  I do not mind the criticism.  I realize that I am not going to make a lot of bitcoin doing this but I do not need a lot of bitcoin to buy an oz of physical silver.  I am planning to keep my day job. 

I felt good about my bitcoin earnings when I realized that that I earned enough free bitcoin from the faucets to buy those 3 Zombucks and it made me feel pumped about doing this.  I felt even better 3 weeks later when I used my free bitcoin to buy a 1-oz Incuse Indian Head silver round.   

Speaking of earnings, I have obtained about 102,000 satoshi worth of bitcoin for today so far.  I probably should end up with at least 200,00 satoshi before I quit at 11:50 PM tonight (U.S. Eastern Time).   

OP, if you read any of my posts, I rarely ever recommend this to newbies, but you should check out signature campaigns here on bitcointalk which is where you rent out part of your user profile (the signature part, specifically) to earn btc.  Newbies don't earn a lot but you can earn way more than 100K satoshis in a day.  And I don't recommend this often, because sig campaigners are notorious for spamming stupid nonsense just to get paid.  I try not to do this. 

Anyway, an economically rational person would weigh time far more heavily than you, but you worked extremely hard for those Zombucks coins and I bet it feels good.

Based on the very few referrals that I have I am starting to see the power of "passive bitcoin income".  I did not know about the renting out of sig lines and I was not sure of the rules regarding that for a newbie such as myself since I do not have a lot of posts.   I will check this out.  Thank you. 

Yes, you definitely should and the only reason I recommended it to you is that you speak English very well (sig campaigns generally pay for English-language posts) and your posts seem very well thought out.  As I mentioned, a lot of sig campaigners do the absolute minimum to get paid, and it makes for awful reading here at times.  The earnings are small, but you can definitely make more than you can with faucets.

[pawel7777]

How much do those faucets pay per hour/day? Your earnings seem pretty high, unless you earned a lot on referrals, you use bot, or you're glued to the computer 24/7.

I do not use bots and I do not have many referrals.  I have 2 referrals on The Bonus Bitcoin and 1 referral on the Alien Faucet and 1 referral on one of the Faucetbox bitcoin faucets that I use.  I hope to increase my referrals at a later date.  

Actually, there are people who earn more than I do but they have a lot more referrals that I do.

As for my bitcoin earnings being "high", that is subjective.  For me, on the weekends I earn more bitcoin from the faucets since I have the weekend off from my regular full time job.  On most weekends, I can earn between 200,000 to 300,00 satoshi if I am at home most of the time.  During the weekday and depending on how early I wake up before I go to work and how many hours I have left before I have to sleep when I get home after I leave work, I can make a total of between 100,000 and 185,000 satoshi a day Monday thru Friday.  If I am working overtime at my job (usually working between 10-12 hours a day), then those earnings will be a lot less since I would home less when working overtimr at my regular job.  

As for spending time on the computer on the Internet, I do a lot of listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the Internet and posting on forums so it works out perfectly for me.  In other words, if bitcoin and bitcoin faucets did not exist, I still would be...............Listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the web and posting on forums.  I do not go out very much outside of work.  

I do understand where you're coming from. Just don't get addicted too much and don't let the faucets dominate your free time.

Personally I only use freebitco.in, mostly on my smartphone (when commuting to work, during cig break, or when waiting for something), I don't care too much about basic payouts, but they do have lottery type payment system, so there's always a chance of hitting something bigger for zero cost.

As the pharmacist wrote, you could build up your rank here and join signature campaign. Much better and more constructive way of earning BTC. For 'hero' rank you can get around 0.0012 per constructive post.

[Silver Art]

How much do those faucets pay per hour/day? Your earnings seem pretty high, unless you earned a lot on referrals, you use bot, or you're glued to the computer 24/7.

I do not use bots and I do not have many referrals.  I have 2 referrals on The Bonus Bitcoin and 1 referral on the Alien Faucet and 1 referral on one of the Faucetbox bitcoin faucets that I use.  I hope to increase my referrals at a later date.  

Actually, there are people who earn more than I do but they have a lot more referrals that I do.

As for my bitcoin earnings being "high", that is subjective.  For me, on the weekends I earn more bitcoin from the faucets since I have the weekend off from my regular full time job.  On most weekends, I can earn between 200,000 to 300,00 satoshi if I am at home most of the time.  During the weekday and depending on how early I wake up before I go to work and how many hours I have left before I have to sleep when I get home after I leave work, I can make a total of between 100,000 and 185,000 satoshi a day Monday thru Friday.  If I am working overtime at my job (usually working between 10-12 hours a day), then those earnings will be a lot less since I would home less when working overtimr at my regular job.  

As for spending time on the computer on the Internet, I do a lot of listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the Internet and posting on forums so it works out perfectly for me.  In other words, if bitcoin and bitcoin faucets did not exist, I still would be...............Listening to Internet talk radio, surfing the web and posting on forums.  I do not go out very much outside of work.  

I do understand where you're coming from. Just don't get addicted too much and don't let the faucets dominate your free time.

Personally I only use freebitco.in, mostly on my smartphone (when commuting to work, during cig break, or when waiting for something), I don't care too much about basic payouts, but they do have lottery type payment system, so there's always a chance of hitting something bigger for zero cost.

As the pharmacist wrote, you could build up your rank here and join signature campaign. Much better and more constructive way of earning BTC. For 'hero' rank you can get around 0.0012 per constructive post.

Fair enough.  I do not let this run my life.  I do occasionally go out and do other things with my free time.  As a matter of fact, I went out and watched the new Star Wars movie that recently came out.  I do get physical exercise (20-30/day cardio exercise) and I do spend time with relatives talking to them.  Even though I do not have much of a life, I still have a life and I live it.  I am open minded about bitcoin and I like bitcoin for what it is and I wanted to make best use of it by earning some and transacting in it.  My love for certain collectable silver coins/bars and the opportunity to get free bitcoin made me come up with this idea of getting free bitcoin from the faucets to buy physical silver with it.  I have not used my smartphone for bitcoin faucet earnings and I do not plan to at this time because I am too busy with my regular job to use my smartphone for long periods of time. 

I will look into the signature campaign once I build up my rank here.  Thank you and Pharmacist for telling me about it. 

[Rols]

You spend time, computer cost and internet to visits faucets. So you pay a lot. It would be better to get some work on internet or at a hamburger place and then buy some Bitcoin. It would get you more. Faucets is good to get some small amounts of bitcoins but to build up a good amount is hard. There are much better ways to do it. 

[Silver Art]

You spend time, computer cost and internet to visits faucets. So you pay a lot. It would be better to get some work on internet or at a hamburger place and then buy some Bitcoin. It would get you more. Faucets is good to get some small amounts of bitcoins but to build up a good amount is hard. There are much better ways to do it.  

I have to respectfully somwehat disagree.  Since I have a regular full time job, I could buy bitcoin with some of my regular earnings from my job but I choose not too.  I buy silver with my regular bitcoin earnings and will still continue to do so.  That is not the issue here.  You are right in that there are quicker ways to get bitcoin but I prefer to earn bitcoin from the internet faucets as an alternative "out-of-the-box" way to get silver and I am achieving that on a small level.  It is easy work compared to working at a hamburger joint.  

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I knew from the start that I was not going to earn much from doing this but I wanted to earn just enough to buy an oz of silver with it and this is the easiest way to do it.  I do not feel that I am paying a lot since I am on the internet anyway but that is just my opinion.  If I stopped earning bitcoin from the bitcoin faucets, I am still spending time, computer and internet costs visiting other web sites.  I just feel productive with my free time and I am still able to do the things that I usually do on the internet anyway while I earn bitcoin from the bitcoin faucets.  I am very patient (what's the rush?) and patience is what it takes when it comes to earning bitcoin from the faucets and building up a good amount to buy physical silver with it.  It just works out for me doing what I am doing to achieve my goal of converting that to physical silver.  Slow and steady works for me and I will continue to do so.  The free bitcoin that I get from the faucets is just "play money" to buy silver with.  Nothing more nothing less and that is how I choose to spend my free time.  I enjoy doing this since I spend most of my time listening to Internet talk radio while I am doing this.  This is enjoyable to me and that it what matters.  It is not for everybody and I understand that too.  To each his own.  

EDIT:  I also want to be clear here that I am not trying to convince anybody to do what I am doing.  People here can make their own decisions one way or the other.  The reason that I started this thread because I am making this work for me because I am interested in silver and in bitcoin and I just wanted to share that here on this forum as a way to spend free bitcoins earned from the faucets.   

[hexitor]

Great job lad. Most people don't have the time and energy to claim faucets like you do though

[OROBTC]

...

O/P, you might do better to just buy some BTC for cash, via localbitcoins (although my luck w. them is "just barely OK" -- hard to get trades done in my city) or other methods.

As others above have suggested, try to land a Signature Campaign account, that will pay better than faucets.  I am very happy with bitmixer.io, but it is a little hard to get into that one.  Keep looking!

I too have bought PMs from Provident, highly recommended!  You might look into 1/10th oz Gold Eagles, they would cost you perhaps $140 or so at perhaps a lower premium to metal value than silver.

[Silver Art]

...

O/P, you might do better to just buy some BTC for cash, via localbitcoins (although my luck w. them is "just barely OK" -- hard to get trades done in my city) or other methods.

As others above have suggested, try to land a Signature Campaign account, that will pay better than faucets.  I am very happy with bitmixer.io, but it is a little hard to get into that one.  Keep looking!

I too have bought PMs from Provident, highly recommended!  You might look into 1/10th oz Gold Eagles, they would cost you perhaps $140 or so at perhaps a lower premium to metal value than silver.

I got used to getting bitcoin from the faucets but I will look into the Signature Campaign account once I post enough here to reach a "higher status" but I mainly spend more time posting on a couple of gold and silver forums and a silver art bar forum.  I wll learn more about localbitcoins at a later date but I want to concentrate on the bitcoin faucets for the time being despite them being lower payouts.  This is just "play money" to buy physical silver with.  

I usually collect old silver art bars from the 1970's and America The Beautiful 5-oz silver "pucks" and buy those from the local dealers and coin shows for bullion premiums.  The regular newer collectible silver (such as Chinese Panda, Zombucks, etc) I plan to buy from Provident Metals with the free bitcoin "play money" that I get from the internet faucets since it is rare that I buy silver outside of '70's silver art bars and ATB 5-oz silver pucks that I normally collect.