Changes to the Bitcoin Faucet...

[Gavin Andresen]

The Bitcoin Faucet ran out of coins this morning, so I took that as a sign that I should make some changes that I've been meaning to make for a while.

The big change is the Faucet now requires you to have a Google account (and login with your Google Account) to get coins.  With IPv6 starting to happen, and people getting ever more creative in the ways they tried to get around the "X bitcoin per unique IP address" rule, I decided to let Google catch people trying to create lots of accounts.

From what I remember, the cost of buying a google account is much higher than the value of the coins I'm giving out (as opposed to the cost of hiring somebody to solve captchas), so the only people working hard to create new Google accounts to try to rip off the Faucet will likely be teenagers with way too much time on their hands.

One little change:  Faucet pay-outs are now:
  0.11 BTC when balance > 500 BTC
  0.05 otherwise (same as before).

And an invisible change that actually happened a few days ago:  the Faucet pays a 0.01 transaction fee every time it sends coins.  That makes Faucet transactions get into blocks quicker when there are lots of other free transactions on the network, and leaves more room in blocks for free transactions.

[bitcoin2]

Bitcoin Faucet running out again : http://www.bitcoinmonitor.com/

[Gavin Andresen]

Thanks-- there was indeed a bug in the "weren't you just here?" code...

[JohnDoe]

If maintaining the faucet is draining too much of your time maybe you should just let it go the way of the dinosaur...

It is possible that most of the payout is going to people bypassing the system rather than newbies anyway.

[Jim Hyslop]

If maintaining the faucet is draining too much of your time maybe you should just let it go the way of the dinosaur...

It is possible that most of the payout is going to people bypassing the system rather than newbies anyway.

You may be right on both counts (unfortunately).

FWIW, Gavin, I intend to give back to the bitcoin faucet as soon as I get my first block...

[Gavin Andresen]

Maintaining the faucet isn't a big drain on my time-- most days I don't think about it.

Given the number of newbies who wander into #bitcoin-dev and mention they got 0.05 BTC from the faucet, I think it is still valuable as a nice introduction to using bitcoin.

And Jim:  thanks!  Without donations the Faucet would have run out of coins long ago...

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I got .05 from the faucet and thought it was awesome. It was enough to see how it is to receive and I'm going to pass it on to a friend when he signs up.
Don't kill it. I'll gladly toss my first (if I ever get one) block at it.

If you find that it's getting the hell abused out of it and not worth it then by all means hit the del key though, that goes against the whole idea.

[ScriptGadget]

As a rank newbie, I want to add my thanks for the faucet. It helped me understand how all of the pieces work to send the BTC 0.05 to MyBitcoin and then send part of it on to my local client.

[kseistrup]

I got .05 from the faucet and thought it was awesome.

+1

[fizgig]

The faucet certainly got me interested.  In fact, I'm ashamed to admit it but I withdrew from another ip address twice.  Total of 0.15 taken.  I'll go donate 1BTC to clear my conscious.  Sorry about that.  If I ever get a block with my 20Mh/sec miner, I'll donate another 5BTC.  Thanks for the very cool website.

[TiagoTiago]

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to predict the future rate of "sips" from the faucet and donations to it, and automaticly preemptvelly reduce the amount each sip gets untill the funds and income get back to a more sustainable rate?

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to predict the future rate of "sips" from the faucet and donations to it, and automaticly preemptvelly reduce the amount each sip gets untill the funds and income get back to a more sustainable rate?

I checked it quite a few times (100 maybe) yesterday and the day before which is no means scientific but throughout the days it seemed to be trending up. Not just one or two huge donations but getting bumps. It seems that with it giving out .05 and a common donation being 1 to 5btc (20 to 100 times what they got) you only need a low % of people that take to give back. With how much of an impact it has on people I see them giving back more than not.

One possible option would be (if they wanted) to have it list recent or big donors, people dig that.

Honestly I think it will be fine though, obviously if the exchange rate changes scale it down, if you start giving out 50usd every dose then people are going to take the time to cheat it.

[mrballcb]

Maintaining the faucet isn't a big drain on my time-- most days I don't think about it.

Given the number of newbies who wander into #bitcoin-dev and mention they got 0.05 BTC from the faucet, I think it is still valuable as a nice introduction to using bitcoin.

And Jim:  thanks!  Without donations the Faucet would have run out of coins long ago...

Gavin, you should make it much more obvious about how to give back to the Faucet.  In the end I had to click to (try to) get another .05 BTC, at which point it said I had already gotten some, but if I wanted to I could give back to a specific address, which I assume is the Faucet.  Is it ok to post it here for confirmation?

[Gavin Andresen]

Gavin, you should make it much more obvious about how to give back to the Faucet.  In the end I had to click to (try to) get another .05 BTC, at which point it said I had already gotten some, but if I wanted to I could give back to a specific address, which I assume is the Faucet.  Is it ok to post it here for confirmation?

The Donate: address is hiding down at the bottom of the page:  15VjRaDX9zpbA8LVnbrCAFzrVzN7ixHNsC
... and I just updated my forum signature, too.

[ScriptGadget]

As soon as I have two bitcoins to my name I plan to donate one of them. Now I just have to figure out how to earn 2 bitcoins. It's been fun thinking up ideas.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

As soon as I have two bitcoins to my name I plan to donate one of them. Now I just have to figure out how to earn 2 bitcoins. It's been fun thinking up ideas.

This will get you 1 if you're interested
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4359.0

Put me at 1.05 

[ScriptGadget]

As soon as I have two bitcoins to my name I plan to donate one of them. Now I just have to figure out how to earn 2 bitcoins. It's been fun thinking up ideas.

Keeping my promise. I just sent 1BTC.

[Olipro]

in regards to your IPv6 comment... IPv6 is actually very easy to restrict; only allow one freebie per /64 and also check if any requests made within a short space of each-other have come from the same /56 or /48 and if so, block accordingly.