Faucets Risks / Benefits in 2019!

[Lucius]

A good portion of those who first time meet with cryptocurrency very often have a distorted image of what cryptocurrency is and how it works.  The idea being spread around the internet is mostly reduced to some kind of magic digital money, which can be reached by doing some simple tasks.

One of such task is probably the most famous way of earning free crypto, and we call it faucet. For those who do not know, faucet is site which rewards the user with a small amount of coins in exchange for the user's visit to the page. To get reward user need to solve captcha, click on anti-bot links and pass through short link. This process has been considerably extended and made more difficult after price of BTC increased over the years.

We can say without any doubt that the reward for time spent on faucets is too small these days, and that faucet owners resort to various tricks to earn more, which of course reflects on the overall impression from the user’s perspective.

Most of faucets are very aggressive in advertising, and very often they can be a source of various malware /virus infections - not to mention that most of the advertisements are promoting scams, bitcoin generators, doublers and mostly suspicious projects. It is important for any faucet user to protect yourself as much as possible with good antivirus+firewall+antimalware and to not click on ads or download anything.

Regarding fees and dust transaction, there is microwallet through which most faucets work today - so this part is solved, transactions are being sent in batch, fees for users are almost insignificant. Faucets should only serve as a way of education for users, but they can be source of income for faucet owners.

I made this topic to help newbies with some info about faucets, something similar is last time updated back in 2016 - Faucet risks
 

[HODL2090]

I do agree that faucets encourages people to get involved and learn about cryptocurrency, and the reward serves as an incentive. But in most cases as the attention on the cryptocurrency industry has massively increased, the risks far out weigh the rewards. If you do come across a good one, by all means get involved, but as OP stated, protect your device. And see it as a building block, there's a lot to them is industry, do not get stuck at one level.

[tbct_mt2]

Thank you, for your thread, and link to Shoreno's thread; both are informative ones.
I have never known about what mentioned in two threads, honestly.

In my perspective, I think that even faucets (nowadays) give people significant amount of bitcoin (or whatever coins) from their works - in fact faucets nowadays have very low payrates; faucet hunters should have a computer/laptop that only used for their faucet works. In case, they works for bad sites, and their devices infected, they will still be safe.

[LeGaulois]

It may be fun to use when you're new to crypto, to test how it works or because you don't want to spend money to buy bitcoins yourself.
But when Adsense stopped to allow faucet websites, faucet owners fucked everything as much as they could.

To me, it's a waste of time, and have no idea why people keep using it (other than the reasons I talked above) I'm sure I make more cents by shutting down my laptop (and save electricity) than clicking captchas online.

[tbct_mt2]

It may be fun to use when you're new to crypto, to test how it works or because you don't want to spend money to buy bitcoins yourself.
But when Adsense stopped to allow faucet websites, faucet owners fucked everything as much as they could.

To me, it's a waste of time, and have no idea why people keep using it (other than the reasons I talked above) I'm sure I make more cents by shutting down my laptop (and save electricity) than clicking captchas online.

Saving more for future maintenance fees for your laptop too. Hunting faucet is good way to waste our time, electricity, devices longevity, and eye-sights, but it is not too bad to use faucets to test new casinos (not to hunt for a fortune, but solely to test new platforms, and new games)

[FireBallex]

I use faucets to claim some satoshis for transaction fees,still come in handy even after bitcoin faucets arent making sense anymore because of price surge which means low fauctes claims,now i use litecoin and bitcoincash faucets only

[Theb]

I was lucky when I was still a newbie in the world of Bitcoin way back in 2016 all the faucets I have participated isn't one of those fraudulent ones. I don't know if its luck or criminals are not yet into the faucet scams during that time. But now I've been seeing a lot of faucets where I need to download their software so that I can start earning which for me is really questionable to begin with, faucet websites doesn't even need to be that complicated in the first place in order to run and earn. Also for newbies reading this their are phishing sites acting out as faucets but what they really want is to obtain your private keys from you having the mistake to enter them in the first place, if they asked for more then your address or email address (to sign up) then you should stay away from it.

Searching also the faucet in Google to know its legitimacy also works by putting some keywords like this.

Code:

[Faucet Name] [Scams/Review]

[AdolfinWolf]

I was lucky when I was still a newbie in the world of Bitcoin way back in 2016 all the faucets I have participated isn't one of those fraudulent ones. I don't know if its luck or criminals are not yet into the faucet scams during that time. But now I've been seeing a lot of faucets where I need to download their software so that I can start earning which for me is really questionable to begin with, faucet websites doesn't even need to be that complicated in the first place in order to run and earn. Also for newbies reading this their are phishing sites acting out as faucets but what they really want is to obtain your private keys from you having the mistake to enter them in the first place, if they asked for more then your address or email address (to sign up) then you should stay away from it.

Searching also the faucet in Google to know its legitimacy also works by putting some keywords like this.

Code:

[Faucet Name] [Scams/Review]

Most likely the reason that they want you to download software is to utilize your GPU/CPU to mine, and perhaps to log your HWID against people who make duplicate accounts?

I know most faucets already have some sort of webminer embedded on their site, so if you want to f* your computer over real good to 100% CPU usage, a single visit to your average faucet is enough to do so.

I use faucets to claim some satoshis for transaction fees,still come in handy even after bitcoin faucets arent making sense anymore because of price surge which means low fauctes claims,now i use litecoin and bitcoincash faucets only

When you ultimately convert those to cash out.. then what? you still pay relatively "enormous" fees compared to what you've earned.

[Theb]

~snip~

Most likely the reason that they want you to download software is to utilize your GPU/CPU to mine, and perhaps to log your HWID against people who make duplicate accounts?

I know most faucets already have some sort of webminer embedded on their site, so if you want to f* your computer over real good to 100% CPU usage, a single visit to your average faucet is enough to do so.

If they are only using it to mine then I know just like what you said a website enabling it to do so is already enough but for me to download a software just to get a few pennies out of you every 30 minutes or so now that's something fishy and chances are if it's not about utilizing your cpu/gpu it's about introducing malware into your system. One thing to note that is not only faucet sites are trying to hijack your cpu/gpu anymore, I know normal websites are doing it as well. One of the biggest names that has been found doing so is UFC as they have used their website's visitors to mine monero before. That's why using system monitors like NZXT's CAM is useful in these situations even if you are just browsing the web.

[LTU_btc]

Sad, but there isn't much benefits in using faucets. While number of risks is big. Damn, I miss best times of faucets when it was possible to claim lot of satoshies without hassle. You didn't to close multiple popups, visit shortlinks, solve difficult captchas and etc. In past I suggested newbies to try faucets to become familiar with Bitcoin and how everything works, get their first coins and etc. But now I can't suggest to use faucets anymore because in general it will be bad experience. But there is still some good and interesting faucets left and I respect owners of it for their efforts.

But when Adsense stopped to allow faucet websites, faucet owners fucked everything as much as they could.

Actually, faucets and similar kind websites where revenue from ads are used to pay to users always been against Adsense rules. But I can agree that faucet owners had fucked it. They even asked to click on ads to support faucet...

[Lucius]

But when Adsense stopped to allow faucet websites, faucet owners fucked everything as much as they could.

It is true that at one point few years ago Google AdSense is hit hard everything that is related to crypto, and faucets were no exception. But some faucet owners have AdSense on their faucets even today, and the thing seems to be working for them because I see ads have been active for over 6 months without any problems.

I know most faucets already have some sort of webminer embedded on their site, so if you want to f* your computer over real good to 100% CPU usage, a single visit to your average faucet is enough to do so.

Time of browser mining on faucets is ended with shut down of most popular service for that purpose Coinhive some 5 months ago, and this is no more problem for users. Almost any good antivirus is block any type of browser mining, so this was only problem for users who were without any protection on internet, and this is same as leave the house door open and think that thieves will not come in.

When you ultimately convert those to cash out.. then what? you still pay relatively "enormous" fees compared to what you've earned.

If you mean fees for withdraw from faucets to user wallet address they are very low, as I write in OP most faucets today use microwallett FaucetHub where users accumulate coins, and after they reach minumum amount they can withdraw. For example for minumum withdraw amount of 20 000 satoshi, fee is only 400 satoshi - https://faucethub.io/fees

[FrankLee82]

Hi guys,

Newbie here, I am just adventuring in the crypto world and gathering loads of imformation from all the sources I can get in order to grasp the concept.

Regarding the faucets, as I understand, it is nowadays useless to spend time on them, since the earnings are too low compared to the time and energy consumed.
So, if like me, someone has decided to start earning bitcoin from scratch and without any investment. Where do you suggest I should turn to?

What I am looking for, is to start earning bitcoin, then investing/trading and if I continue winning I would start buying hardware to mine.

I have tried some websites to freelance fr bitcoin but there aren't that efficient, I mean one of the site did not even let me register since they do not need freelancer. Only one project was posted.
I have joined a couple of Faucets which after research showed they are reliable, but as you said, the winnings are peanuts, it is really for when you don' t have anything to do at work and feel like clicking on the mouse.
And so on....

So if you have any suggestion for me, I am all ears.

 

[AdolfinWolf]

Hi guys,

Newbie here, I am just adventuring in the crypto world and gathering loads of imformation from all the sources I can get in order to grasp the concept.

Regarding the faucets, as I understand, it is nowadays useless to spend time on them, since the earnings are too low compared to the time and energy consumed.
So, if like me, someone has decided to start earning bitcoin from scratch and without any investment. Where do you suggest I should turn to?

What I am looking for, is to start earning bitcoin, then investing/trading and if I continue winning I would start buying hardware to mine.

I have tried some websites to freelance fr bitcoin but there aren't that efficient, I mean one of the site did not even let me register since they do not need freelancer. Only one project was posted.
I have joined a couple of Faucets which after research showed they are reliable, but as you said, the winnings are peanuts, it is really for when you don' t have anything to do at work and feel like clicking on the mouse.
And so on....

So if you have any suggestion for me, I am all ears.

 

Honestly.. It's pretty difficult. You could try to take some risk and engage in P2P trading with a high risk processor (Paypal) and catch high fees from buyers (20-30%), other than that, it might actually be smarter to just learn a trade (Programming for example), and either apply that into the BTC world, or simply buy Bitcoins whenever you get your salary from said trade job.

There's really no magic way to earn a lot of Bitcoin quickly. Anything you see that resembles that is either a HYIP/Ponzi, or a scam. (trading signals etc.)

[LeGaulois]

So if you have any suggestion for me, I am all ears.

 

There are few websites paying users to complete surveys and micro-tasks (à la Amazon Mechanical Turk) and a few of them pay in BTC right away (for the others you will have to find a way to swap your money from Paypal to BTC). It can also be time-consuming but surely more rewarding than faucets websites (and fewer risks too). So if you have some spare time...

The same goes with some Android applications, not sure for doing what, watching videos and stuff like that.

Check out the Micro Earnings board, you will probably find other suggestions there.

Welcome to the forum

[pooya87]

i find it interesting how the meaning of certain things have changed throughout the years. for example "faucet" has never meant to be a way to "earn" bitcoin! it was a way to quickly acquire some coins with no effort so that you could test this new phenomenon called bitcoin. this was a real "faucet".
then it turned into a way for people to "farm" them and earn bitcoin and for the creators to display a ton of ads and make money (in this case fiat, absurd isn't it?) from them.

there are other things that have changed their meaning. for example "airdrops" used to be like faucets where people could simply ask and receive a certain amount of the "new coin" so that they could try it out and see if it is worth the effort. nowadays it has turned into a job where people have to advertise for that coin and get paid in that coin, where the whole process is called "airdrop"!

[Avirunes]

[..]

Well thought^^

It's gonna exist since this is the only way you get others to try something new. People always runs towards free money and neglects all this risks associated with the task whether it be airdrops or faucets. Now it's airdrop time since it's worthless now clicking captchas to earn some faucet money.

It's kinda win-win for both developers and users so I think it's not gonna stop as for developers it is helping them to develop their user base, interests ,buzz while on other hand as a user you know it's "free money".

Wonder what's next after "airdrop"...

[beonline]

i find it interesting how the meaning of certain things have changed throughout the years. for example "faucet" has never meant to be a way to "earn" bitcoin! it was a way to quickly acquire some coins with no effort so that you could test this new phenomenon called bitcoin. this was a real "faucet".
then it turned into a way for people to "farm" them and earn bitcoin and for the creators to display a ton of ads and make money (in this case fiat, absurd isn't it?) from them.

there are other things that have changed their meaning. for example "airdrops" used to be like faucets where people could simply ask and receive a certain amount of the "new coin" so that they could try it out and see if it is worth the effort. nowadays it has turned into a job where people have to advertise for that coin and get paid in that coin, where the whole process is called "airdrop"!

Interesting to learn. I wasn't around at that time and always thought bad about faucets and a source of malware. But if you look at it, many things changed in the space since then.

[Mor254]

faucet cannot be relied upon to collect a large amount of bitcoin.
Gambling sites offer faucet to try the games, not to raise capital from them
They are a waste of time

[daneal stev]

For me, the taps are a waste of time because they offer very little bit of bitcoin. A person can only get a big lot if they win the weekly lottery
As well as we can not rely on a single tap we need a lot of them to raise capital is very simple and in a length of time