Those of us who have been around the cryptoverse for a while will inevitably have come across HoneyGain, a bandwidth‑sharing app, which fundamentally is a crowd‑sourced residential proxy network.

It may have been through onsite advertising (particularly faucets) or even through their reward system which gives also gives a crypto option through JumpToken (to be honest I had never heard of it before I started writing this). It also presents as a way to add to a user's passive income stream - something that also draws crypto users. To me the idea of sharing my internet connection with third parties screams two words at me...

SCAM and PRIVACY

And so with this in mind it only deserves a bit more of a deep dive, and if nothing else to at least give the P0x community a heads up on it.

It does appear that it is not a scam. Registered as Swarmbyte Inc., it appears to be based in the US or Switzerland depending on which source you go with, it has been operating since 2018 and has millions of users. TrustPilot confirms through multiple reviews that real payments are made and further more based on >10,000 reviews it has a highly respectable 4.5 out of 5 TrustPilot review.

Using it couldn't be easier. Simply download and install the app (available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS) and let it run in the background as it automatically uses your unused bandwidth. In return you earn credits  that equate to approximately $1 per 10 GB of traffic and users can cash at a minimum of $20 through PayPal or JumpToken. However, rewards are dependent on the users location, internet speed, the number of unique IPs and devices which are connected (up to 10 are allowed) and the daily traffic caps per device.

Those utilising your bandwidth typically use it for web intelligence and market research as well as content delivery and data gathering. Its key advantage is that it presents itself as a legitimate (read legal) way to bypass geo‑restrictions for research purposes. This in itself begs the question as to why not simply use a VPN.

Realistically, across several devices the average user earns $20 - $40 per month, but some users have reported slow earnings and long waits for the first payout and HoneyGain itself advertises that the average payout (presumably per month) amounts to $26. So in the end this, while passive, is never going to become a meaningful income stream, it’s pocket money, although that is better than most faucets or play to earn platforms.

So, while it is considered safe, it still comes down to the fundamentals of whether we are willing to share our bandwidth (and in effect our own data) with a wide range of third parties and the user has no control over which companies use your connection. HoneyGain provides limited transparency about partners and data usage and this in itself raises more questions rather than offering reassurance.   So, with relatively low earnings amounting to $1 per 10 GB you need to ask yourself whether it is worth it. It may be one of those things where , if you have your computer (or even a dedicated old device) running all the time it might work out (just make sure you cover the electricity at least) as an additional income stream, but based on the promise of a passive stream it seems to be more hard work than value in my opinion.

What is your experience with HoneyGain?

As always stay safe and well my friends.