Just like everyone else, I like to read about ways to get some free cryptocurrencies.
Still, one thing that doesn’t receive much love among the crypto enthusiasts are the Crypto Faucets. And today I feel like writing a bit about these “drops of generosity”.
Many of us already had the following thought when someone mentions Crypto Faucets: “it’s not worth the effort or the time.”. People also argue that faucets will never make you rich. And I partially agree with that.
It is easy to agree with the previous thought nonetheless. After all, faucets only provide small fractions of Bitcoin (or other coin). These free satoshis are just tiny crumbs that will not fill your bank account or paying you anything in real life. But lets not forget about the time, when BTC emerged, that there would be faucets paying you 0,1 BTC. That's around $6400 today (supposing that one held it until now). An amount large enough to make me very happy for some months.
Furthermore, in some faucets, you never end up hitting the minimum amount to withdraw your coins. Sometimes your patience runs out faster than the faucet itself.
There is also the nuisance of browsing through some websites filled with annoying ads and sketchy layouts always lurking people to click on an annoying pop-up that leads to a even shadier website.
There are also some faucets that turns out to be complete scams, some even hijack the CPU of the users in order to mine some crypto for themselves. A way to check if this is happening to you is by using the Task Manager (CRTL + ALT + DEL) and checking the “Performance” tab. A huge usage or usage spikes (having minimal apps/programs in the background) could mean that some webpage is using your computer or even be infected with some malicious malware. If this happens to you I recommend running some anti-malware program. I also strongly suggest the use of some browser coin mining blockers. Like the names suggests, these addons were designed to purposefully block mining scripts being used on you.
However, let’s not forget one of the main benefits of faucets: They are a good way for newcomers to get introduced into the crypto world.
Since the amounts are so small, the risk of losing money is minimal. They are beneficial to try wallets, sending and receiving satoshis, getting introduced to staking and learning about the fees. Talking about fees, (which leads to a second benefit) is that faucets can also be a good source of extra satoshis to cover up some transaction fees of your favorite coins. According to the Mac&Cheese faucet, 0,001 MATIC is enough to cover up 100 basic transactions on the Polygon network.
I hope that I gave you motivation to keep claiming your faucets -or- to start claiming and, if you are security paranoid like me, be aware of those shady websites.
What about you? Tell us in the comments your approach to the crypto faucets. Do you use them? For how long?
Thank you for reading.
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