If you’ve been using FreeBitcoin for a while, as I have - actually for about five years! - you probably noticed it went down recently. It wasn’t just a short blip either. It was off the internet for several days, came back briefly, then vanished again.
Over on the FreeBitcoin Community Monitoring Thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5530397.0 - folks were starting to think the worst. Some were saying, “That’s it, it’s gone,” and waving goodbye to their funds. Others were telling people not to panic or spread FUD. But let's face it, when a site that holds your Bitcoin just disappears without warning, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Over the years that I've worked with FreeBitcoin, I've earned a decent amount from the daily interest payments, the referral program, the rewards system, and all the rest (except the gambling side, which I avoided like the plague). I felt pretty comfortable with the site… until the daily “Wheel of Fortune” rewards stopped working for no clear reason. That was the first red flag.
Then the site went down. No warning. No message. Just gone. I had around 0.028 BTC sitting there - earning interest, sure - but interest doesn’t mean much if you can’t actually access your funds.
So in the rest of this blog post and accompanying video, I'll go through what happened to my two most recent attempts to withdraw Bitcoin from FreeBitcoin, keeping in mind that I'd never had a problem withdrawing sizeable amounts of Bitcoin from the site before.
Video: Free Bitcoin Faucet Site Returns But Can We Get Our Bitcoin Out?
My First Withdrawal: Through SimpleSwap to Hive...
Just before the first of those outages, I’d initiated a withdrawal. I wanted to send about $60 worth of satoshi to the Hive blockchain using SimpleSwap.io. My plan was to turn it into SwapHive to buy a bunch of DEC to power up my recent Splinterlands land purchase.
I initiated the order using the SimpleSwap app on PeakD, but before the transaction could go through, FreeBitco.in went down again. That was a problem because if the BTC doesn’t arrive within a fairly short window of time, the SimpleSwap order gets cancelled.
When Freebitcoin eventually came back online, I checked my withdrawal status - and saw that it was still "pending" on FreeBitcoin. I was fairly sceptical about whether or not it would ever be fulfilled, but to my surprise, a couple of days later, I got an email from FreeBitcoin telling me that they had sent out my Bitcoin.
Now, here’s the hiccup: SimpleSwap didn’t pass it on to my Hive account. I checked the transaction - they’d received it, but it was too late for their system to process the order. So I contacted their support.
A Quick Word About SimpleSwap
Happily, SimpleSwap’s support - whether it was a real person or an AI named Stephanie - was excellent. Quick responses, clear instructions.
"Stephanie" told me my Bitcoin had been received, but too late to complete the exchange. She offered to refund it - but not to my own wallet. By default, they send refunds back to the original sender, which would mean… back to FreeBitcoin's transaction wallet again!
I wasn’t keen on that, so I told "Stephanie" I’d rather she send my Bitcoin to another of my wallets. She said okay - but SimpleSwap needed proof I was the account holder. They wanted a video of me logging in to FreeBitcoin, navigating to my transaction history, and showing the specific withdrawal - all in one continuous shot, and NOT a screenshot video, but a video of the screen from a separate video camera.
Now, that was a bit tricky, because I needed my phone to authenticate the login, so I couldn't use it to film myself logging in. In the end, I used my new Chromebook laptop to record the process on my old Chromebook laptop while using my phone to authenticate the login. It took a few takes, but I got it done. (So glad I recently bought a new Chromebook!)
And the good news? Simpleswap refunded the Bitcoin - successfully - straight into my secure wallet. Result! 🤩
My Second Withdrawal: Direct to Wallet
I wasn’t feeling so great about keeping too much Bitcoin on Freebitcoin any more. Sure, the site was back online, but after those outages, I didn’t want to take any more chances.
So I initiated another withdrawal - this time, straight to my wallet. I went with the “instant” option, which costs a bit more in transaction fees, but is supposed to take just 15 minutes.
I timed it - nothing after 15 minutes. In fact, it took about a day and a half. But eventually, I got the email from Freebitcoin saying they’d sent 0.025 Bitcoin, and yes - it arrived safely in my wallet. 🥳
Why I’m Now Earning Sats on Hive Instead
After all that, I’ve got to say - these days, I much prefer earning satoshi over on the Hive blockchain. No need to mess around with faucets, or wonder if the site’s going to vanish, or wait days for a payout. I just post content through the OneBitcoinClub frontend and get rewarded not just in Hive Power and HBD, but also in Bitcoin sats direct into my V4V wallet built on the Hive blockchain, provided the content I published is good quality.
My Verdict
So what’s the verdict on FreeBitcoin?
Well, FreeBitcoin is still working. You can withdraw your Bitcoin. But the recent downtime, the failure to fix the Wheel of Fortune spins for those of us who bought FUN tokens, have shaken my trust. Until recently, I had used two rules of thumb to guide me when dealing with FreeBitcoin:
The "Lindy Effect" - something that's been around for a while can be expected to continue to be around for a similar amount of time. (Obviously, it doesn't always work - Barings bank for example, but it's a quick and easy way to avoid short term scam sites...)
The gambling side of FreeBitcoin must be a nice little earner, so there's no rational reason to do a rug-pull any time soon...
In addition, I set myself a "comfort zone" - what my maximum holding would be on FreeBitcoin, and whenever my sats went over that amount, I withdrew a bunch.
Oh, and my other rule was never to put in hard-earned fiat currency, only affiliate commissions paid out in Bitcoin.
Over the last five years, that has proved to be a successful - if risky - strategy, but from now on, I won’t be leaving more than 1,000,000 satoshi on the site, probably much less. I’ve had a good run with it, and it helped me get from zero crypto holdings to where I am now, so not too bad at all. I'll still play around with it, but from here on out, I’ll be a lot more cautious.
That’s it from me. Go careful with your loot, always do your own due diligence, and if you’re looking to earn sats the smart way consider creating value-rich content on the OneBitcoinClub front: it might just be the better option!
Cheers for now!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
Hi
I started long time ago to play with this faucet, but I gave up
It was eaten too much of my time
Peace
5 years ago, my first goal was to get to 30k sats to start earning interest. I found ways to earn more than the hourly click rate - by leveraging Rewards. I also promoted the site to start earning commissions, and dropped affiliate commissions onto the site, and then bought FUN tokens to earn multiple daily wheel spins. It was a nice arrangement and even if I didn't touch it for a few days, it was earning a few hundred sats every day for hardly any effort.
!ALIVE
!BBH
Thank you
I was quite annoyed and perturbed by Freebitco.in's broken functionality and downtime too, though you have a lot more on there than I do. I bought and staked 1, 500 FUN tokens with most of the BTC that I made a few months ago, and I've been rebuilding my stack. I still use the site many times per say, but u am hoping that I'll be able to get my assets out of there as soon as it's feasible. I'd far prefer to just earn BTC here on Hive, which I was doing for a while. I still haven't gotten OneBitcoinClub set up yet, mostly due to the satoshis that I need to have in the wallet to conned to the site. I'll figure something out. Quick question, what would be the smallest reasonable amount of BTC to try to send, that wouldn't be eaten by transaction fees? 😁 🙏 💚 ✨ 🤙
!ALIVE
!BBH
!HOPE
!INDEED
I HAD a lot more on there, but not any more! Still enough to earn daily interest, but not so much as to be too bothered if it really does disappear... I still have 200k FUN staked so it sucks that the wheel spins disappeared, but whenever a 25% FUN payout occurs I restake up to 200k and convert the surplus interest earnings into sats.
The key is to get to 30k sats asap so that you can start earning interest, which is paid daily. I use Reward Points to increase my daily wheel spins whenever I'm at home all day.
As for the question of small withdrawals, FreeBitcoin will add the fee to the amount you want to withdraw, and will show you how much the fee is before you complete the transaction. There may be some other fees as the sats make their way to the destination wallet. You could try withdrawing 10k sats and you'd certainly get enough in your wallet to fund the 5k for OneBitcoinClub.
Out of curiosity I asked google about minimum BTC transactions: "The smallest amount of bitcoin that can be sent in a transaction is actually 547 satoshis or 0.00000547 BTC. Smaller amounts are considered spam by the client software. So transactions smaller than 547 satoshis are declined and are not added to the blockchain."
!ALIVE
!BBH
I imagine so. The site's challenges over the past few weeks have certainly not helped with confidence. That's a good balance, enough for interest, but not enough to cause a major issue if it disappears. 200K staked FUN?!? Yipes, that comes in handy I'm sure! I bought and staked some for a year, but I haven't kept track of them since then. Perhaps I should. Luckily with the Wheel-of-Fortune spins, if they're missed, they just get saved for the next round. I've had that happen many times so far.
That's helpful. 30,000 eats and 200K staked FUN gives me a goal there. I do that too with the Reward Points when I have a day when I can stay at my computer more.
OK, that's good to know. Getting to 10K sats is not difficult thankfully. So OneBitcoinClub requires 5k satoshis in your wallet to connect?
That's also very helpful, thank you. I very rarely seen BTC, since I know the transaction fees are ridiculous.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write out this response, as it's super helpful! Tons of thanks again, David!
!ALIVE
!BBH
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!BBH