You don’t have to spend money to begin your cryptocurrency collection or to expand your wallet. It is possible to get free bitcoins, provided you know where to look.
Our guide aims to help you identify opportunities to earn free bitcoin in a safe and secure way.
How to get free bitcoinc
There are a number of ways to get free bitcoins and they fall roughly into six categories:
1. Bitcoin faucets: Turning on the taps for free bitcoin
A bitcoin faucet is a website that steadily releases a daily drip of free bitcoin – its name comes from the American word for a ‘tap’.
It’s worth noting that this is only ever a steady trickle – you can’t turn those taps up high and have a bath in free bitcoin! Every few minutes you’ll get a fraction of a bitcoin, probably the equivalent of a few pence or cents, depending on your currency. These bitcoin fractions are often referred to as Satoshis – with one Satoshi worth the equivalent of 0.00000001 bitcoins.
Why do faucets give away bitcoins like this? Well, bitcoin faucets are effectively paying you for your attention. The longer you’re on their website, the better their engagement metrics looks and the higher the ad revenue they can potentially attract. They’re effectively paying you a small amount to be their audience.
Your payment can normally be sent straight to your bitcoin wallet – or perhaps will be dished out from a micropayment service such as FaucetPay – once you’ve reached a minimum withdrawal amount.
Before you try a bitcoin faucet, you want to look at:
- The payment – known as the ‘average claim’.
- Timing – how long you have to be on the site to get your payment.
- The minimum amount you can withdraw.
- How you will be paid.
Best bitcoin faucets
Here are some bitcoin faucets to consider:
A popular bitcoin faucet that launched in 2018. You can claim 200 Satoshis every hour and withdraw a minimum of 35,000 Satoshis into FaucetHub.
One of the oldest and most established faucets, this offers you the chance to get up to 100,000 Satoshis every five minutes. Payments made monthly.
This gives you the chance to earn Satoshis every five minutes – and you can earn up to an impressive 400 Satoshis in an hour.
2. Bitcoin giveaways and airdrops: What they are and how they work
The bitcoin and cryptocurrency community is made up of a number of people who are passionate about the topic. Early adopters and advocates genuinely want to change the world – with new payment types that are free from central control, fast, secure and befitting for a digital age. For that reason, many people have launched giveaways to help to quickly and effectively spread the base of people with access to a cryptocurrency.
While it’s probably fair to say that these used to be a little more common in the past, it is still possible to find bitcoin giveaways.
The process of sending out free coins to multiple accounts in this way is often referred to as an airdrop. Often, you become eligible for an airdrop by sharing a post on social media or, for example, completing a survey.
It’s possible to find details of a bitcoin giveaway through platforms such as Reddit, Twitter or YouTube, where influencers are popular. However, and we’ll come to this later, it’s also important to be aware of scammers who might pretend to be offering a giveaway to carry out a crime.
It’s also possible to find out details of giveaways from sites such as:
A popular site that has grown since being set up in 2017 and has a mailing list that’s well worth signing up to.
A Netherlands based airdrop aggregator that allows you to automate airdrops directly into your account.
This updated daily with a the latest list of airdrops – and offers exclusive airdrops to social media followers.
3. Bitcoin games: A fun way to earn free crypto
It is possible to earn your free bitcoin through games. These are sites that are similar to the faucets we looked at above. The difference here is that you have a game to play while you are staying on a site and creating an audience for advertisers.
This can be a great way to use up any dead time you might otherwise waste by scrolling social media. The prizes are typically small but the games are fun and, if you get hooked, then you can earn a decent amount of free bitcoin as you play.
Looking for some games to try to boost your bitcoin wallet? Here’s a few good examples:
Play games – and view the ads in between games – and you can claim free Satoshis every three minutes with this site.
Love a good quiz? Why not put your knowledge to good use. The more questions you get right, the more Satoshis you earn.
A smartphone app that allows you to convert Bling Points for bitcoin with a Coinbase account.
4. Mining: Make free bitcoin with your hardware
If you’ve got some serious kit, then you can put it to use to ‘mine’ free bitcoin
– solving complex mathematical problems to verify and validate blockchain calculations. It is worth stressing, however, that bitcoin mining is a little tougher than it used to be. You’re competing against people who are able to dedicate a lot of time, money and resource into mining bitcoin – so you need something a little more powerful than a standard home computer at your disposal. Without this, you’ll spend a lot more mining your bitcoin than you ever make back.
However, if you’re tech savvy and do have the right kit this could still be an option to look into. Conduct thorough, in depth research – our guide can help – to ensure you know what you’re letting yourself in for before you attempt to begin mining.
5. Affiliates: Free money (or rewards) for referring a friend
Affiliate schemes are by no means unique to the world of cryptocurrencies, but they are a common and easy way to get bitcoins for free.
Essentially, all you need to do is refer a friend to a service – sending them
a URL. By using this you will both get a benefit in the form of free bitcoins. They’re also known as partner or referral programs too.
The amount of benefit will depend on the service in question, but it’s good
to explore affiliate opportunities for any common platforms that you use.
Here are some examples of some of the best affiliate programs:
An established name in the world of cryptocurrency, Coinbase’s affiliate program offers 50% commission for all trading fees during a user’s first three months.
This is a platform that allows people to lend bitcoins. You’ll earn 50% of transaction fees as a commission with an affiliate link.
This is a service that lets you store your bitcoins offline. You’ll earn 12-15% commission from each sale prompted by your affiliate link.
A popular trading platform that has a partners’ program. It has paid out more than $80 million so far.
A super-popular brokerage where people buy and sell cryptocurrencies, Coinmama’s affiliate program pages 15% of all purchases made by the people you refer. That continues for as long as they use Coinmama too.
6. Payment or donation by bitcoin
You could decide to ask for bitcoins to be sent to you from others. This could be in return for work you’ve carried out which, while not technically free, might mean you ‘earn’ bitcoin for a side hustle doing your hobby or something you’d enjoy anyway.
You might also want to accept donations via bitcoin – something that
might be a nice charitable gesture for those supporting worthy causes or
apt for those accepting gifts from generous fans who want to support your creative efforts.
Check out sites such as BitPay if you want to find out how to setup a bitcoin donation page.
Be careful of free bitcoin scams
Unfortunately, as with any other walk of life, the popularity of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have attracted people who wish to exploit this for their illegal gains. While the options above offer you legitimate ways in which to
get free bitcoin, you have to be alert to the fact there are scams online that purport to offer free bitcoin in order to steal your money.
To avoid falling for free bitcoin scams you should always avoid any method that involves you needing to make a payment to someone. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Free bitcoins are offered:
- as a payment for your time or attention,
- for your ability to attract others,
- as an opening offer to help to grow a new cryptocurrency,
- for solving complex mining equations.
If you’re not clear what you’re giving in return for free bitcoins – and none of the above apply to you – then you need to stop and think whether the scheme is actually a scam.