This story is about how I managed to get free Bitcoin online, and while I can’t claim there was no effort involved, I can say it didn’t cost me any money.
A lot of people in the cryptospace are looking to increase their Bitcoin holdings. The proliferation of scams that seem to offer quick and guaranteed profits from minimal investments are a testament to this. Individuals have messaged me on social media offering ways to make easy money fast. I’ve also seen dozens of posts from people promising amazing returns in exchange for sending them small investments. While these are scams (real investment opportunities never guarantee profits and no one is just giving crypto away for free), they continue to exist for a reason. People are looking for ways to get Bitcoin with little to no effort or upfront costs.
Over the past two years, I have managed to over $11,000 in free bitcoin and tokens. How did I do it? Several different ways.
Bitcoin Faucets
My first free Bitcoin came from faucets. I got a tiny amount, approximately 0.001 BTC (for a discussion of how faucets work see this article). However, I really can’t recommend faucets as a way of getting free Bitcoin since the amounts they give out are so small. However, they are a fun way to learn about crypto and test out sending and receiving from a wallet for the first time. Indeed, my first Bitcoin transactions were faucets payouts. Yet, I didn’t keep doing them for very long. I quickly moved on to more lucrative activities.
Surveys and Odd Jobs Online
I got more Bitcoin from doing surveys and small jobs online. There was, of course, some effort involved. The small jobs were time consuming and boring. They consisted of things like checking the URLs of businesses and making sure information was correct on directory websites. After doing these jobs for a few weeks, I quickly focussed my energy on the surveys, which are less boring and slightly more profitable.
Of course, surveys are also time consuming. They can take anywhere from 4–20 minutes to complete. Sometimes it is hard to find ones you qualify for. In addition, each survey pays out a different amount of BTC depending on the pool of respondents being targeted. For example, a survey about chocolate or beer is pretty open, usually wanting males or females of a certain age who consumed beer or chocolate in the past year. These surveys typically pay only around 25–150 bits each. Other surveys are more specialized, wanting participants who suffer from a particular health condition or who have a specific type of job (e.g. manager with decision-making authority over IT purchases). These more targeted surveys can pay anywhere from 500–15000 bits.
Naturally, surveys want respondents to be honest but I admit to answering questions in ways to make sure I qualified for the most surveys possible. After trying a few of them, it is easy to pick up on tricks for answering questions in a way that makes you seem eligible, no matter what demographic they are looking for. I worked on surveys this way for a couple months and although the earnings were modest, they were real and totalled about 0.015 BTC.
Crypto Airdrops
Most of the free Bitcoin I got came from airdrops. An airdrop is typically part of a marketing campaign for crypto and blockchain startups. A company will give out small amounts of free coin or tokens in exchange for following their social media accounts. Airdrops generate buzz for an ICO (for a detailed discussion of airdrops see this article). I participated in hundreds and hundreds of airdrops and received hundreds of different tokens. The majority of them will be worthless, either because the project fails or the amount given out is so small it is not worth the gas to send them to an exchange.
However, I’ve been lucky to participate in a few airdrops that turned out to be profitable. For example, in one drop I got over 2200 Oyster Pearl tokens, which reached a high of over $7,000. When that happened I sold about half of the tokens for BTC. More recently, I got an airdrop of HYDRO, which was worth approximately $3,000 when I sold half of what I was holding. I’ve also received multiple drops of tokens that ended up being worth a few hundred dollars. Other drops maxed out at between $10–150. I slowly got more BTC by selling these tokens at the right time. So far, I have made approximately $6,500 in total from airdrops.
To profit from airdrops, it is important to be patient and take advantage when there is an increase in value. It also takes some time to learn about the different (and sometimes obscure) exchanges where they can be sold.
Bounty Campaigns
While looking for the airdrops, I kept seeing references to bounty campaigns. Eventually, I looked into what exactly these were. It turns out they are also part of marketing campaigns. Airdrops are one of the first phases of a startup’s marketing plan. Bounties are another way of generating buzz and interest in a project. Essentially, a bounty campaign involves doing tasks in exchange for tokens. The amount of tokens given out for bounty tasks is usually higher than airdrops. However, bounties are more time consuming and can be a challenge to find. I think the best way to find good ones is to use one of several bounty aggregating platforms. These platforms organize campaigns and keep track of social media activity. They also distribute the tokens.
Social Media and Content Creation Bounties
The easiest bounties involve simply liking, retweeting, and sharing content from a project’s social media accounts. However, these also pay the least. The more profitable bounties are “content creation” campaigns, which involve writing articles or creating Youtube videos about a project and posting them online. The content bounties pay the best (often several hundred dollars for a high quality piece) but they are also the most time-consuming. Moreover, they are only feasible for those who have a good knowledge about blockchain technology and strong writing skills.
I first started with social media bounties and earned thousands of tokens this way. However, I soon moved on to writing articles. At that point, I was deep in the cryptospace and had enough knowledge to understand and assess the concept behind many startups. I also had a general interest in writing. I created articles on dozens of different blockchain projects and received 100s of thousands of tokens in exchange. Not all of these tokens became valuable but some did. I would put my earnings from bounties at approximately $5,000.
Nothing is Really Free
As you can see, there are ways of getting free Bitcoin online. However, it should also be clear from my story that nothing is really “free”. Getting Bitcoin from faucets, surveys, selling airdrop and bounty tokens, all take a good chunk of time. The most profitable bounties also require a good amount of knowledge of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. So, while I never paid any money to get this Bitcoin, I did put in a lot of time and effort.