Is it worth using faucets to pay for transaction fees?

[Bizmark13]

I'm a senior member but since this is a question about faucets, I'll be posting it here.

OK, so I know everyone says that faucets aren't worth the time and energy and I'm pretty sure everyone is in agreement that unless Bitcoin suddenly shoots up to $1 million, you won't get rich from them. But couldn't they be useful for paying transaction fees? My Electrum wallet enforces a minimum fee of 10,000 satoshis. This amount could be earned in a single day from faucets or a couple of days from a single high-paying faucet. This would allow someone to send Bitcoin transactions essentially for free while still making sure that their transactions arrive on time.

It would also be helpful if you need to pay an exact amount. Say you want to buy something which costs 0.4 BTC. To do this, you need to send 0.4 BTC to address X. You have 0.2 BTC in address A and 0.1 BTC in two other addresses (B and C). With transaction fees subtracted from the total amount, you would not be able to buy the product you wanted. But if these transaction fees were paid using the earnings gained from a faucet, you wouldn't lose any BTC in the form of fees.

[kwaasteniet]

Of course you are right, you can earn the transaction fees. But with all that faucet dust in your wallet you must increase the minimum transaction fee.

[Q7]

What you say it's true but for the same amount of time that you put in for a whole day's work to earn from faucets, you might be better off doing some other stuff offline that could pay far more than 10000 satoshis. Furthermore like what kwaasteniet pointed out, the dust amount will make the transaction size become bigger, so in general you will end up paying more fee.

[Herbert2020]

I'm a senior member but since this is a question about faucets, I'll be posting it here.

OK, so I know everyone says that faucets aren't worth the time and energy and I'm pretty sure everyone is in agreement that unless Bitcoin suddenly shoots up to $1 million, you won't get rich from them. But couldn't they be useful for paying transaction fees? My Electrum wallet enforces a minimum fee of 10,000 satoshis. This amount could be earned in a single day from faucets or a couple of days from a single high-paying faucet. This would allow someone to send Bitcoin transactions essentially for free while still making sure that their transactions arrive on time.

It would also be helpful if you need to pay an exact amount. Say you want to buy something which costs 0.4 BTC. To do this, you need to send 0.4 BTC to address X. You have 0.2 BTC in address A and 0.1 BTC in two other addresses (B and C). With transaction fees subtracted from the total amount, you would not be able to buy the product you wanted. But if these transaction fees were paid using the earnings gained from a faucet, you wouldn't lose any BTC in the form of fees.

i think this is actually a good idea. but keep in mind to just have 2 inputs for your tx dont fill your wallet with dust (5500 sat)

[niktitan132]

Well,if you have these dust amounts of BTC you will pay a higher fee.It's better if you collect from faucets with microwallet and set that they send the BTC when you reach  0.001 BTC,so it would't be dust amount.

[Yuki1988]

If you have a way to get more bitcoin in the same time period than using faucets, why would you use faucets?
Whether you are planning to use the faucet payment to pay tx fee or to simply accumulate more bitcoin doesn't make it different.

[Kprawn]

People seem to miss the real value of faucets. Once you have built up a small referral network of say 10 active people, you do not have to lift a finger.

I have a few faucets like that, and they all collect into one micro wallet. The payout schedule pay out, after a certain minimum amount of Satoshi are collected in the account.

On some faucets, you can set these payout limits. {To prevent "dust" from gathering in your wallet}

Normally people who "bash" this as a waste of time, are either, in a financial position, to not waste time on collecting micro amounts of Satoshi's or they did not use the referral system and only received "dust" from faucets.

Put some effort in and you will not have to pay for transactions fee's on any of your transactions.  

Ps.. I received more than 100 000 Satoshi's from Freebitcoin faucet for this week. {How many fee's can I pay for with that?}

[pooya87]

Well,if you have these dust amounts of BTC you will pay a higher fee.It's better if you collect from faucets with microwallet and set that they send the BTC when you reach  0.001 BTC,so it would't be dust amount.

i don't think if you have 2 inputs of for example 1 BTC and 0.0001 BTC it would need more fee since the fee is calculated from the size of transaction

[SirChiko]

But how would you be able to pay fees from other address than the address you are sending the money from, that isn't possible right?

[twister]

But how would you be able to pay fees from other address than the address you are sending the money from, that isn't possible right?

Of-course you can. You can have input from any and all the addresses within a wallet. If you don't define 'from' while sending the tx, the wallet will pick up the amount needed from all the addresses in a wallet.

[CrackedLogic]

You would be able to do that, but I don't see a reason to unless you're dead broke. It's only a couple of cents. So faucets have a minimum payout to cover transaction fees - the irony - so I look at it as a lot of work.

[I-Will-NEVER-Stop]

I also earned over 400K satoshi this week in referral commissions from only 2 good faucets. 

Using, Promoting and Running faucets are not a waste of time... You just need to know how to do it. 

[SirChiko]

But how would you be able to pay fees from other address than the address you are sending the money from, that isn't possible right?

Of-course you can. You can have input from any and all the addresses within a wallet. If you don't define 'from' while sending the tx, the wallet will pick up the amount needed from all the addresses in a wallet.

Oh i see, but it's waste of time anyway i think, i'll spend less time making these 2 cents than setting it up from faucet.

[CrackedLogic]

I also earned over 400K satoshi this week in referral commissions from only 2 good faucets. 

Using, Promoting and Running faucets are not a waste of time... You just need to know how to do it. 

Well you're getting satoshis from referrals. That's a bit different from earning it yourself since that is passive. I'm just going to say with referral income, the early bird gets the worm.

[medUSA]

I see faucets in a different light. I believe they are a good way for newbies to get a some amount of bitcoin to play around and learn about the basics. They have their values in the community. It is up to you how you spend the dust you collect from them. Using them as transaction fees is a good idea. The problem is dust collected require extra transaction fees to send away.

[Anillos2]

I see faucets in a different light. I believe they are a good way for newbies to get a some amount of bitcoin to play around and learn about the basics. They have their values in the community. It is up to you how you spend the dust you collect from them. Using them as transaction fees is a good idea.

I share your point of view.

A newbie can make easily they first mBTC just with faucets, and he can learn how bitcoin works, what is an address, security...
Then, he can start offering services, doing works, purchasing bitcoins, buying goods...

The problem is dust collected require extra transaction fees to send away.

It's better to wait until you have 1mBTC before withdraw the coins.

[jaberwock]

you need to pay the transaction fees from the faucet to your wallet. So your return to the start.

And is your local so undervalued that 0.0001 BTC is something to worry about

[Possum577]

Interesting thought but it still takes a long time to gather a balance using faucets. THe gambling is fun though.

Since transaction fees will remain at the same rate as the BTC price increases you'll have to play ever more faucet games to cover the same transaction fee.

[jaberwock]

Interesting thought but it still takes a long time to gather a balance using faucets. THe gambling is fun though.

Since transaction fees will remain at the same rate as the BTC price increases you'll have to play ever more faucet games to cover the same transaction fee.

I think he meant faucets like freebitcoin, not gambling sites that have a faucet for you test things out.

[Mt. Gox]

Interesting thought but it still takes a long time to gather a balance using faucets. THe gambling is fun though.

Since transaction fees will remain at the same rate as the BTC price increases you'll have to play ever more faucet games to cover the same transaction fee.

I think he meant faucets like freebitcoin, not gambling sites that have a faucet for you test things out.

Freebitco.in has a "multiply BTC" function that lets you play a hi-lo game that works in a similar way to a dice site. The house edge is about 5% which is a lot higher than most dice sites though.