Imagine a faucet that gives 5 BTC to every visitor every day. You had to be there to believe it.
The year was 2010, and bitcoin had just launched a year prior. There were no crypto exchanges yet. The only way to get Bitcoin was to mine it yourself or get it from someone who already had it. However, the value of any new technology is in mass adoption, and that is something that early Bitcoiners understood. The early adopters who saw the potential of bitcoin knew that the only way this potential could be realized was through mass adoption. One notable figure from the early days of bitcoin is Gavin Andresen, a computer programmer who created a faucet where anyone could get some free BTC.
I want Bitcoin to be successful, so I created this little service to give you a few coins to start with.
Gavin Andresen
According to legend, Gavin bought 10,000 BTC at a total cost of $50 (what a time to be alive!). He created a website that dispensed 5 BTC per visitor. All one had to do was complete a simple captcha. It is worth mentioning that Gavin’s faucet was found to have some security flaws as demonstrated by one user who drained all the BTC in the faucet, but kindly returned it with instructions on how to fix the issue.
The source of the bitcoin in Gavin’s faucet is reported different by other sources. According to bitcoin.com, Gavin’s faucet is reported to have been powered by his own 1,100 BTC initially, and later by the benevolence of miners and well-wishers. Throughout its lifetime, the faucet had dripped a total of 19,715 BTC. That’s an equivalent of 1.1 billion USD in today’s value! Thanks, Gavin.
Gavin was a central figure to Bitcoin's development in its early days, and he was highly revered by Bitcoin enthusiasts but was later ostracized by the Bitcoin community in 2016 following his support for Australian computer scientist Craig Wright who claimed to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto. Craig's claims did not sit well with the community, and several sources vehemently debunked those claims. Consequently, Gavin’s commit access to Bitcoin core on GitHub was revoked almost immediately, stripping him of his privileges as a dominant figure in the development of the Bitcoin code. The media outlets that originally supported Craig Wright’s claims later reported that Wright was engaged in an elaborate hoax to masquerade himself as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin. In a recent interview, Gavin also revealed that he may have been fooled by Craig Wright into believing that Craig was Satoshi.
After his embattled exit from Bitcoin, Gavin has gone on to express his support for Bitcoin Cash; saying it stands for what the original Bitcoin idea was.
Gavin has continued to maintain a low profile, but his contribution to making Bitcoin what it is today will not be forgotten.
