Bitcoin is a payment system introduced as open-source software in 2009 by developer Satoshi Nakamoto. The payments in the system are recorded in a public ledger using its own unit of account, which is also called bitcoin. Payments work peer-to-peer without a central repository or single administrator, which has led the US Treasury to call bitcoin a decentralized virtual currency. Although its status as a currency is disputed, media reports often refer to bitcoin as a cryptocurrency or digital currency.

Bitcoin faucets are a reward system, in the form of a website or app, that dispenses rewards in the form of a satoshi, which is a hundredth of a millionth BTC, for visitors to claim in exchange for completing a captcha or task as described by the website.

A Bitcoin faucet is a World Wide Web website that gives out “free” bitcoins (BTC) in exchange for doing a simple task, such as clicking on an advert, solving a CAPTCHA, or viewing a webpage for a certain amount of time. There are also faucets that dispense alternative cryptocurrencies.

Rewards are dispensed at various predetermined intervals of time. Faucets usually give fractions of a bitcoin, but the amount will typically fluctuate according to the value of bitcoin. Typical payout per transaction is less than 1000 satoshi, although some faucets also have random larger rewards. To reduce mining fees, faucets normally save up these small individual payments in their own ledgers, which then add up to make a larger payment that is sent to a user's bitcoin address. As bitcoin transactions are irreversible and there are many faucets, they have become targets for hackers stealing the bitcoins.