In June of 2010, you can start a very simple website and fill out a few shaky letters in a CAPTCHA box and then move on with your life and leave with 5 bitcoin. 16 years later, Bitcoin Fauceter Jack Dorsey announced on X to make that happen again. It did, sort of. In April this year, 2026, Block organized its Bitcoin Day, where for five days it had $1 million worth of BTC sitting on the table, capped each person at $80 and invited people to buy, spend, and self-custody bitcoins and claim them.
This is a very condensed version. Now, if you’re still looking for the faucet this century, the longer the better, since the official campaign ended on April 10, 2026, while the copycats did not. We’ll explain below what the original did, how Block did the same step-by-step, who was left out, why some long-time bitcoiners rolled their eyes, and how you can discern a real giveaway from the fake ones still using Dorsey’s name as bait.
First, What a Faucet Actually Is
The name implies it, but a bitcoin faucet is a site where users can get free bitcoins. It drips. A faucet is any online website or application that provides very small quantities of bitcoins in return for some minor task, such as solving a CAPTCHA, viewing an advertisement, playing a simple game, or signing up for an offer. Sats, which are the hundred-millionths of a coin, are used to measure payouts. The majority of faucets make their money from the data and ad views that you provide on their way.
Faucets don’t come with a price tag that comes with a profit. They were onboarding tools. Someone had to get their first bitcoins, and in 2010, there was no Cash App or large exchange or even any regular person who could purchase bitcoin utilizing a debit card.
The 2010 Original: Gavin Andresen’s Five-Coin Giveaway
The initial bitcoin faucet was launched in June 2010, just a couple of weeks after Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC. It was created by Gavin Andresen, a software developer who later became the lead developer of Bitcoin when Satoshi Nakamoto quit. It was loaded with Andresen’s coins. The deal was dead simple: solve a CAPTCHA, paste an address, receive 5 BTC.
To put that in perspective, here are a handful of numbers:
- When the faucet opened, Bitcoin’s value was a fraction of a cent, making the entire operation a very cheap endeavor to Andresen’s account.
- During the approximately two-year period, it transferred approximately 19,700 BTC.
- He kept reducing the take, as the price rose. At the time of the closure in 2012, people were getting fractions of a coin.
- At April 2026 prices near $67,000, those 19,700 coins would be worth around $1.3 billion. A single 5 BTC drip would be equivalent to approximately $335,000.
Those are pretty much all likely lost. They were stored in wallet files on laptops, which were subsequently. They were either wiped or lost, or they were used to purchase a sandwich or were just forgotten.
The audience was what the faucet knew was right. It introduced real money to the developers and the people who became tinkerers and went on to create the plumbing that everyone uses today, as well as wallets and exchanges. It was never a mass-market tool. It didn’t have to be so.
How Dorsey Teased the Comeback
The Block’s Bitcoin at Block account broadcast a brief message that the faucet was now back on Friday, April 3, 2026, and gave a link to a new domain. Dorsey retweeted the tweet to his followers, and the tweet went viral. The page on its own had minimal content: an orange faucet icon, three words, and a countdown timer. Buy, Secure, Spend.
No rules. No pool size. No eligibility. Crypto social media was left to fill the void with guesses and memories of 5 BTC being equal to six-figure amounts, and of course, a lot of unofficial look-alike websites with claim buttons after three days.
So what is Dorsey doing now and why? He has been campaigning for this for years, and has consistently contended that Bitcoin must become a commonplace currency, not a trading chip. Block (which used to be Square) operates Cash App, Square’s merchant solutions, the Bitkey hardware wallet, and Proto mining hardware, and maintains approximately 8,900 BTC on Cash App’s own balance sheet. A revival of the faucet was an almost perfect fit with the brand.
How the Btc.day Campaign Worked, Step by Step
The btc.day bitcoin faucet will be open from Monday, April 6, 2026 at 9 a.m. Eastern and will continue until Friday, April 12, 2026 at 9 p.m. Eastern. Until the $1million pool (approx. 15 BTC) was depleted, April 10th. It not like Andresen’s place, where they paid you to click stuff. It gave you credit as you used Block’s product, one step at a time.
Action 1: Purchase (worth 5 BTC)
Purchase at least $10 worth of bitcoin within the promotion period in Cash App. You were rewarded with $5 in BTC, which was literally put into your Cash App Bitcoin balance. Basically half of what you spent.
Actions 2: spend = $25 worth of BTC
Pay a participating Square seller a minimum of $1 in bitcoin or cash balance via the Lightning Network. The reward was $25 in BTC. This was the clever one. We all got our first true Lightning payment from a $1 coffee, and it was worth 25 times the value of the dollar!
Action 3: Own (worth $50 in BTC)
Log into the Bitkey app, then withdraw (or purchase) bitcoin from your Cash App account to a Bitkey wallet. Block’s FAQ states that a transfer of $50 is the qualifying amount. The biggest of the three rewards was $50 in BTC.
The highest payout for each action was $80 per person. All the bonuses dropped into the Cash App Bitcoin account, not into some other wallet you had.
Who Could Join, and Who Couldn’t
The official Cash App Bitcoin Day terms, which you can still access on Cash App’s legal page, were harsh:
- Applies to legal residents of the United States only (50 states and D.C.).
- Age 18 or older. Crypstudio
- The account is verified, you can purchase bitcoin, has a physical address, and has an email address registered in their account
- In New York, the residents of the city were unable to do the Spend step, but were able to do the Buy step because of rules in the state.
Outside the U.S., there was nothing to be claimed. Full stop. That’s an important point to emphasise because the faucet story went viral around the world on social media, whereas the payout was entirely American. Scammers love exactly that kind of mismatch.
2010 vs. 2026: Same Name, Very Different Faucet
Compare the two, and it’s clear which one is better.
There was a CAPTCHA if you were to participate in 2010. It is a verified account, a $10 purchase, a real merchant payment and, for the best bonus, a Bitkey wallet, which has been priced around $150 USD.
And the reach was different as well. Anyone who had an internet connection could access Andresen’s site. It is in any place, anywhere in the world. Only verified AMERICAN adults read Block’s version.
And the lesson was different. The 2010 faucet taught us one thing: how to create an address and receive coins. The 2026 edition guided users through all the steps of purchasing, using, and retaining their own keys themselves. In that respect, the Block bitcoin faucet was more of a showcase of what the company has accomplished, serving as a marketing budget paid for by the company.
Why Some Bitcoiners Weren’t Impressed
The pushback started within hours. The typical complaints were:
- The reward required cash, unlike the old days of faucets.
- $80 is an excellent bonus, but not a life-changing bonus.
- All those outside the U.S. and, in part, New York were excluded.
- It was a Customer acquisition campaign for Cash App, Square, and Bitkey.
All of the above are fair points. A faucet was the most that could be said of it.
But this is our real opinion. It’s around $335,000 a person to match the 2010 deal, and a true replay wasn’t in the cards. It’s much better for the long-term health of Bitcoin than another sats-for-ad-views website if a $1 million giveaway encourages users to remove their Bitcoins from a custodial app and deposit them into an app they control. Look at which step paid the most. Bitkey self-custody has its reward in spending doubled and buying ten times increased, at $50. That sure is what Block was trying to get people to read.
Is the faucet still running?
No. The official campaign ended on April 10, 2026. We are not aware of any second The claims that Block and Cash App have returned have yet to be verified through the official channels, so don’t believe them until you can confirm it.
So, is the bitcoin faucet legit? The April 2026 campaign was: It was a public stock. The company (NYSE: XYZ) was previously announced with terms, and payments were made within Cash App. Any page today that says it’s continuing it outside these official channels should be taken with a grain of salt, particularly if it asks you to connect a wallet or send coins first.
The Scams That Ride on Dorsey’s Name
For several years, Dorsey’s name has been used as scam bait. This fake Bitcoin “livestream” is a repurposed version of a real 2021 video of Dorsey, Elon Musk and Cathie Wood discussing Bitcoin, and then redirects users to a page promising to send back double whatever crypto they purchase. When the reporters pointed it out, the scam wallets had already collected roughly $30,500 worth of BTC and ETH.
The Bitcoin Day news just provided a new hook to the same crooks. A typical Jack Dorsey Bitcoin giveaway scam is a script that you can learn to detect:
- You are requested to send crypto first. It gets dressed up as a “verification deposit,” a “gas fee,” or an “unlock fee.” Block didn’t ask for anything to be sent to him.
- You are prompted to enter your seed phrase or connect a wallet. No real promotion needs your recovery words. Ever.
- It’s nearly correct. An additional word, alternate ending, hyphen. The actual campaign resided on a single domain name, and lookalikes imitated the branding.
- The livestream has an address in the description and comments are switched off. Real executives don’t run crypto-doubling events on random channels.
- Block support messages first. The same applies to an unprompted DM on X, Telegram, or text it’s a red flag, just like fake exchange text messages that attempt to trick you into providing a code.
- Here comes a countdown warning that the pool is running low. Urgency is the oldest trick there is.
It’s the same formula that was used during the presale of RCO Finance, and that was ultimately a big failure. When you’re not certain about a website, our guide on how to check if a website is a scam explains the domain age, WHOIS lookups, and more of the quick checks you should make.
Check the Address Before You Send a Single Sat
The golden rule is quite easy to follow. A real faucet sends to you. It doesn’t require sending to it. However, if you have been convinced that there is a payment you must make, STOP and consult a crypto wallet scam checklist, such as the one found on Crypstudio’s homepage, before making any transfers. It validates address format, displays the current balance and alerts you to any reported scam activity. It’s not a giveaway wallet if it receives hundreds of small payments and sends them out extremely quickly. It’s a trash can!
If you’re curious about how platforms determine this type of risk in the background, our breakdown of fraud scoring will explain which on-chain indicators are good tips that identify a bad wallet.
Where to Find a Real Faucet in 2026
There are still independent taps out there and some of them are cool and straightforward. Simply set your expectations. Today’s legit free bitcoin faucets reward users with a few sats at a time, frequently via a Lightning wallet, and the majority of users earn cents, rather than dollars, per day. Even nothing out there will feel as good as the bitcoin faucet Jack Dorsey mentioned, let alone Andresen’s 5-coin drip.
If you’re thinking about signing up for one, check out this list:
- No fee to withdraw. Avoid walking away after “your” winnings have been demanded for payment.
- Relatively low minimum withdrawal amount. Faucets that are too high and will never be achieved are stealing your ad views.
- Lightning payouts. On-chain payment is too expensive, use serious faucets with Lightning.
- No seed phrase, no browser extension, no mining bot download. These are typical ways in which malware is delivered.
- A proven history. App store reviews, Company Name clearly stated, and some history online.
There are other ways to get free bitcoin that don’t require you to look at ads. Any faucet will pay out slower than a bunch of Bitcoin-backed debit and credit cards, round-up features that convert spare change, merchants who pay loyalty rewards in sats, and just having a portion of your paycheck in BTC.
What Bitcoin Day Tells Us About the Direction of Block
Back from the camera and the campaign seems more like a product demo. The Cash App has been pushing hard on daily bitcoin usage over the past year, including direct deposits that turn into bitcoins, a map of bitcoin-friendly spots, rounding up purchases, and a direct route to Bitkey via Lightning payments at Square stores. Bitcoin Day bundled them all into a single 5-day journey and gave some people a cash prize to experience the journey.
More of that is to be expected. Incentive campaigns are relatively inexpensive and provide a learning environment that is not possible with traditional advertising. Look out for more scam artists making use of the next one. If the Bitcoin faucet Jack Dorsey didn’t teach us anything, it’s that the good old-fashioned free version of it exists. Now Bitcoin includes terms, a verified account and a real company behind it. The dishonest version is equipped with a countdown, along with a wallet address. Know the difference and scan before you send.
