The Humble Beginning of Bitcoin Giveaways
In June 2010, Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen created a revolutionary tool that played a key role in spreading awareness of Bitcoin: the Bitcoin faucet. This simple website gave anyone 5 BTC just for solving a CAPTCHA—a basic bot-checking test.
At the time, Bitcoin was still a new and experimental digital currency. Each BTC was worth just a few cents, so giving away 5 BTC wasn’t seen as particularly generous. But in hindsight, this initiative was groundbreaking.
The faucet distributed a total of 19,700 BTC. Today, that amount is valued at over $2 billion, underscoring how much Bitcoin has grown in just over a decade.
