6. Earn through Bitcoin faucets

A Bitcoin faucet is a type of “reward system” that dispenses free Bitcoins, usually in exchange for completing a captcha or task. Think of it as a modern way to bribe the Internet for more web traffic.

Surprisingly, the first Bitcoin faucet was invented by Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andresen in 2010.

The amount of money you can make from a Bitcoin faucet varies: most only give away a few satoshis at a time, but with the right site and dedication you could easily make a few hundred dollars reasonably quickly. (By the way, one satishi is another name for a hundredth of a millionth BTC.)

People create free Bitcoin faucets for a number of reasons, yet the most common driving forces are:

To make a website appear more active (i.e. more active users)

To invite new users in the hopes they’ll end up spending more than they take

To introduce more people to Bitcoin

To earn revenue from ads

As an example, there are a ton of Bitcoin casinos which double-up as free Bitcoin faucets. This is because marketing can be difficult in the online gambling world — it’s a grey area, and casinos are often restricted from traditional advertising such as Google AdWords, YouTube ads, billboards and radio.

One strategy that Bitcoin casinos have been using lately is to plainly give away free money through a Bitcoin faucet. The goal here is to attract as many new players as possible. This might sound like a stupid idea for a casino operator to do, but it’s actually profitable.

If it costs the casino $9,000 in giveaways in order to eventually find someone who blows $10,000, it’s still a return on investment. Casinos have worked out that giving money away is actually a good way to make money. Besides, most people who claim free Bitcoins from these faucets never withdraw it—they just give it back. Don’t make that mistake!

I never recommend gambling away faucet money, because it usually never tends to work out. Instead, collect, collect, collect and collect, and then withdraw.

Some sites allow you to withdraw instantly after a faucet collection, while others don’t. The usual trick to encourage you to gamble or abandon your free Bitcoins is to have a minimum withdrawal amount higher than what you can claim. No worries — just keep collecting, and you’ll be able to withdraw in no time.

Usually Bitcoin faucets allow you to claim free money every few minutes, so if you collect 2 mBit every three minutes over four hours, you will have accumulated 160 mBit ($250). That’s not bad for a few hours of clicking!

The sites that do allow you to withdraw instantly usually pay less than those who don’t, but if you accumulate enough, you can withdraw a pretty substantial sum of Bitcoin in no time. If you regularly use normal faucets to earn free Bitcoins, this may be a faster and more lucrative option than hopping many sites at once.

Some Bitcoin casinos offer showers of Bitcoin, which usually pay the same amount as a faucet. The difference between a Bitcoin faucet and Bitcoin rain is that rain money gets distributed to everybody at once. Other than that, it’s essentially the same thing.