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.
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.
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! 🤩
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. 🥳
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.
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
