In a news post today, 9th of November 2019, Mexicantarget, owner and operator of Faucethub.io announced, "The end of the faucet industry as we know it."
FaucetHub is the biggest micro wallet site out there, aggregating the micro-payments in Bitcoin and Altcoins from hundreds of faucets for tens of thousands of us.
In the post Mexicantarget outlines that due to increasing regulation of crypto currencies FaucetHub can not continue to operate as a micro wallet.
Various regulations around the world are converging to make FaucetHub be treated as a payment processor, as they are storing and transacting in cryptocurrency on behalf of other people. Being a payment processor brings the site under legal obligation to become regulated as a financial company.
Mexicantarget says,
"Those of you who know me know I am a firm believer of privacy for myself and users here. This is where I draw the line, and will not be doing this. The result is FH will no longer be the FH that it is today, and will no longer be able to provide many of it's current services to users or FOs."
(FH = Faucethub, FO= Faucet owner)
What will happen to Faucethub?
FaucetHub is switching to focus on providing "Offerwall services to users and businesses." and will be rebranding.
What happens to users Funds?
In the future Faucethub will only support Bitcoin, so is asking users to withdraw Altcoin balances before December 10th 2019. After this date, it will no longer be possible to process Altcoin withdrawals.
What happens after December 10th, 2019?
Faucethub will retain some limited functionality as they build the new offerwall service, which they expect to launch in early 2020.
- Chatbox and chat ads
- Forum
- Dashboard and user account areas
- Bitcoin withdraw functionality
- Ability to claim and earn from our Offerwall providers
- Referral system
What happens to all the faucets?
Faucethub say they are in talks with other micro wallet owners to form a partnership to keep the faucet industry alive. But, as they are asking all faucet owners to withdraw Altcoins this does not bode well, at least for Altcoin faucets.
Conclusion
If you have taken your first steps into crypto currency via earning on faucets you have almost certainly come across Faucethub and will see this as a sad day.
On the flip side, this is more evidence of the maturation of the crypto industry, albeit due to regulation eroding the privacy so many of us see as a benefit of crypto.
Hopefully someone will figure out how to get a legal balance between privacy, and providing micro-payment services that will let people continue to earn micro incomes online.
Update
Mexican target plans to post updates here: https://hostingforbtc.com and says, "I will be posting news about FH on that site. Keep an eye if you're interested to be informed about the new script I will make so you can become your own MICRO WALLET."
That sounds promising!
