# Gavin Andresen and the Bitcoin faucet: free coins, and the developer Satoshi handed Bitcoin to

Gavin Andresen announced a Bitcoin faucet offering five BTC per visitor on 11 June 2010. It helped newcomers obtain coins for experiments. In December 2010 he publicly took on project management with Satoshi’s blessing. The 2024 COPA judgment records Satoshi’s transfer of the alert key to him on 26 April 2011, and later examines his mistaken support for Craig Wright’s identity claim.

Evidence: [“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/); [“Development process straw-man”](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2367.0); [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf)

Canonical: https://degreesofsatoshi.com/encyclopedia/gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet/
Published: 2026-09-23
Substantively modified: 2026-10-02
Independently verified by an automated reviewer: 2026-10-02T16:01:48.343Z

AI-assisted research and drafting with a separate automated source-verification pass; no external expert or named human review is implied.

## Key facts

- **Faucet launched:** 11 June 2010: “Five ฿ per customer,” seeded with 1,100 bitcoin ([“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/))
- **Satoshi’s verdict:** 18 June 2010: “Excellent choice of a first project, nice work” ([“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/))
- **Anti-cheating changes:** 23 June 2010: captchas for suspicious requests ([“Bitcoin Faucet changes,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/74/))
- **Faucet closed:** 2012, after cutting the amount as bitcoin gained value ([“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/))
- **Took over project management:** 19 December 2010, “with Satoshi’s blessing” ([“Development process straw-man”](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2367.0))
- **Alert key received:** 26 April 2011, per High Court findings ([Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf))
- **BIP 101:** 22 June 2015: blocks of 8 million bytes, doubling every two years ([BIP 101: Increase maximum block size](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitcoin/bips/927b6de9915c9262615a6399de51b200f81e5aa4/bip-0101.mediawiki))
- **On Craig Wright:** Backed him on 2 May 2016; called it a mistake in February 2023 ([Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf); [“‘It Was a Mistake to Trust Craig Wright’: Bitcoin (BTC) Foundation’s Gavin Andresen”](https://u.today/it-was-a-mistake-to-trust-craig-wright-bitcoin-btc-foundations-gavin-andresen))

## A website that handed out five bitcoin to anyone who asked

On 11 June 2010 a new member of the Bitcoin forum named Gavin Andresen announced his first project: a web page at freebitcoins.appspot.com that would send “Five ฿ per customer, first come first served.” You solved a captcha, pasted in a receiving address, and five bitcoin arrived. He had stocked it with 1,100 bitcoin. His reasoning was simple: Bitcoin could only succeed if newcomers could easily get a few coins to try it.

A week later Satoshi Nakamoto replied. “Excellent choice of a first project, nice work,” he wrote on 18 June 2010, adding that he had thought about doing the same thing himself. He suggested showing the faucet’s balance to encourage people to top it up, and rotating the donation address. As our [wallet dossier on the faucet](/wallet/the-bitcoin-faucet-2010-published-donation-address/) records, Andresen published a donation address in the thread so recipients could send coins back to the pool.

The faucet ran for about two years. As bitcoin gained value Andresen cut the amount per visitor, and he shut it down in 2012. Estimates of how much it gave away in total vary between secondary sources and this site has not verified them on-chain, so we do not repeat a figure. What is certain is that for a while, the easiest way to get your first bitcoin was to ask politely.

Evidence: [“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/); [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/)

## Cheaters arrived within two weeks, and so did Satoshi’s advice

By 23 June 2010 Andresen was back on the forum with a problem. He had been watching the internet addresses of people claiming their five bitcoin and had spotted clusters of requests from the same network ranges, a sign of one person collecting many times over. He added captcha challenges for suspicious requests and floated cutting repeat claimants down to a “bitcoin nickel” of 0.05.

Satoshi replied on 26 June with an engineer’s suggestion: enforce a minimum time between payments to each large block of internet addresses, since big providers tend to hand out addresses from the same range, and if that could not be solved, reduce the amounts while keeping the captcha. It is a small exchange, but it shows the working relationship in miniature: Andresen ships, Satoshi reviews.

Evidence: [“Bitcoin Faucet changes,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/74/)

## “With Satoshi’s blessing”: the developer Satoshi handed the project to

Over the following months Andresen sent Satoshi improvements to the software, and Satoshi liked them enough to make Andresen’s email address the only contact on the project’s homepage. On 19 December 2010 Andresen opened a thread called “Development process straw-man” and wrote that “with Satoshi’s blessing, and with great reluctance,” he would start doing more active project management. He proposed a staging tree on GitHub, pull requests merged on consensus, and regular tested builds.

The handover was completed in private the following spring. The High Court’s 2024 judgment in the Craig Wright case records, as uncontested history, that in around April 2011 Satoshi delegated the role of lead core developer to Andresen and on 26 April 2011 sent him a file containing the network alert key, the one key that could broadcast a warning to every user. Our article on [Satoshi’s disappearance](/encyclopedia/satoshi-nakamoto-disappearance/) tells that side of the story, including Satoshi’s last emails.

Andresen served as core maintainer until April 2014, when Wladimir van der Laan took over the day-to-day job. By then Andresen, working from a home office in Amherst, Massachusetts, was describing the code’s future as a job for caretakers rather than master builders.

Evidence: [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/); [“Development process straw-man”](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2367.0); [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf)

## The Bitcoin Foundation, and the block size fight

In 2012 Andresen conceived the Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit that for a few years was the closest thing Bitcoin had to an official body. It paid him to work on the software full time, $209,648 in 2013 according to MIT Technology Review, and his title there was chief scientist. The Foundation gave Bitcoin a public face at a moment when regulators and intelligence agencies wanted someone to explain it, and Andresen was the person they asked.

His most consequential technical position came in 2015. Bitcoin blocks were capped at one megabyte, and Andresen argued that transaction volume would soon hit that ceiling. His Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 101, dated 22 June 2015, proposed replacing the fixed limit with one that grew at a predictable rate: eight million bytes from January 2016, doubling every two years until 2036. The proposal is now marked “Closed.” It was not adopted, but it became a rallying point in a long and bitter dispute. Our [block size war dossier](/history/bitcoin-block-size-war/) covers what happened, and our [BIP explainer](/encyclopedia/bitcoin-improvement-proposals/) explains the process a proposal like this goes through.

Evidence: [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/); [“Major questions arise over Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto”](https://techcrunch.com/?p=1315525); [BIP 101: Increase maximum block size](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitcoin/bips/927b6de9915c9262615a6399de51b200f81e5aa4/bip-0101.mediawiki)

## The Craig Wright episode, and the walk-back

In the spring of 2016 Andresen was approached by Craig Wright, an Australian who claimed to be Satoshi. On 29 March 2016 Andresen sent a list of proofs he wanted, including a message signed with Satoshi’s known PGP key; the court later recorded that Wright gave some reason why he did not have it or it would not be good proof. In early April Wright held a private “proof session” with Andresen in which, on Wright’s account, he demonstrated control of keys tied to early blocks. On 2 May 2016 Andresen published a blog post saying he was convinced Wright was Satoshi, and Wright went public the same day.

The proof did not hold up. Technical commentators pointed out within hours that the signature Wright published had been pulled from an existing transaction on the blockchain, which anyone could copy, and some asked whether Andresen’s account had been hacked. In 2024 the High Court recorded expert agreement that the private sessions, including the one with Andresen, could have been spoofed by straightforward means with no visible warning, and that Wright’s public blog post was “clearly not a genuine proof.” The court declared that Wright is not Satoshi; our [article on the COPA ruling](/encyclopedia/craig-wright-copa-ruling/) has the details.

Andresen did not retract for years. Then, in February 2023, he added a note to the top of his 2016 post. As reported at the time, he said he did not believe in rewriting history, so the post would stay up, but he now knew “it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright” as much as he had, and he regretted getting sucked into the game of guessing who Satoshi is.

Evidence: [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf); [“Major questions arise over Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto”](https://techcrunch.com/?p=1315525); [“‘It Was a Mistake to Trust Craig Wright’: Bitcoin (BTC) Foundation’s Gavin Andresen”](https://u.today/it-was-a-mistake-to-trust-craig-wright-bitcoin-btc-foundations-gavin-andresen)

## What the faucet still teaches

The faucet is remembered as a curiosity: free money handed to strangers. That misses why it mattered. In June 2010 the problem was not that bitcoin was cheap, it was that almost nobody had any, and a currency nobody holds cannot be used. Andresen’s five-coin handouts, and Satoshi’s advice on stopping cheaters, were the project working out distribution in public, one captcha at a time.

It also explains the handover. Satoshi’s successor was the person who showed up with a working project, took feedback, and shipped fixes. Everything that followed, the Foundation, the block size fight, the Wright episode, happened to the same person for the same reason: he was the one who stepped forward. For the on-chain side of the story, the faucet’s donation address is in our wallet library, and the origins dossier puts 2010 in context.

Evidence: [“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/); [“Bitcoin Faucet changes,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/74/); [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/)

## Questions

### What was the Bitcoin Faucet?

A website Gavin Andresen launched on 11 June 2010 that sent five bitcoin to anyone who solved a captcha and supplied a receiving address. He seeded it with 1,100 bitcoin, cut the amount as bitcoin gained value, and shut it down in 2012.

Evidence: [“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/); [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/)

### Did Satoshi Nakamoto choose Gavin Andresen as his successor?

In effect, yes. Andresen announced on 19 December 2010 that he would take on active project management with Satoshi’s blessing, and the High Court in London recorded in 2024 that Satoshi delegated the lead developer role to him in around April 2011 and sent him the network alert key on 26 April 2011.

Evidence: [“Development process straw-man”](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2367.0); [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf)

### What did Gavin Andresen say about Craig Wright?

On 2 May 2016 he published a blog post saying he was convinced Wright was Satoshi, after a private session in which Wright appeared to sign with an early key. In February 2023 he added a note saying it had been a mistake to trust Wright as much as he did. The High Court found in 2024 that Wright is not Satoshi.

Evidence: [“Major questions arise over Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto”](https://techcrunch.com/?p=1315525); [“‘It Was a Mistake to Trust Craig Wright’: Bitcoin (BTC) Foundation’s Gavin Andresen”](https://u.today/it-was-a-mistake-to-trust-craig-wright-bitcoin-btc-foundations-gavin-andresen); [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf)

### What was BIP 101?

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 101, written by Andresen and dated 22 June 2015, proposed replacing the fixed one-megabyte block size limit with a limit starting at eight million bytes in January 2016 and doubling every two years until 2036. It is now marked Closed and was not adopted.

Evidence: [BIP 101: Increase maximum block size](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitcoin/bips/927b6de9915c9262615a6399de51b200f81e5aa4/bip-0101.mediawiki)

## Claims and scope

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-quick-answer

Gavin Andresen announced a Bitcoin faucet offering five BTC per visitor on 11 June 2010. It helped newcomers obtain coins for experiments. In December 2010 he publicly took on project management with Satoshi’s blessing. The 2024 COPA judgment records Satoshi’s transfer of the alert key to him on 26 April 2011, and later examines his mistaken support for Craig Wright’s identity claim.

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-faucet-launched

Faucet launched: 11 June 2010: “Five ฿ per customer,” seeded with 1,100 bitcoin

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-satoshi-s-verdict

Satoshi’s verdict: 18 June 2010: “Excellent choice of a first project, nice work”

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-anti-cheating-changes

Anti-cheating changes: 23 June 2010: captchas for suspicious requests

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-faucet-closed

Faucet closed: 2012, after cutting the amount as bitcoin gained value

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-took-over-project-management

Took over project management: 19 December 2010, “with Satoshi’s blessing”

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-alert-key-received

Alert key received: 26 April 2011, per High Court findings

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-bip-101

BIP 101: 22 June 2015: blocks of 8 million bytes, doubling every two years

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

### gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet-fact-on-craig-wright

On Craig Wright: Backed him on 2 May 2016; called it a mistake in February 2023

Scope: {"collection":"bitcoin","dataAsOf":null,"blockHeight":null}

## Sources

- [“Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/66/) — Satoshi Nakamoto Institute archive (BitcoinTalk). Andresen’s 11 June 2010 announcement of five bitcoin per customer from an initial stock of 1,100, and Satoshi’s 18 June reply calling it an excellent first project and suggesting a visible balance and rotating donation addresses. Locator: Andresen’s 11 June 2010 announcement of five bitcoin per customer from an initial stock of 1,100, and Satoshi’s 18 June reply calling it an excellent first project and suggesting a visible balance and rotating donation addresses.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:14.428634+00:00.
- [“Bitcoin Faucet changes,” thread](https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/threads/74/) — Satoshi Nakamoto Institute archive (BitcoinTalk). Andresen’s 23 June 2010 report of repeat claims from the same address ranges, his captcha response and the 0.05 bitcoin nickel idea, and Satoshi’s 26 June suggestion of a minimum interval per address block. Locator: Andresen’s 23 June 2010 report of repeat claims from the same address ranges, his captcha response and the 0.05 bitcoin nickel idea, and Satoshi’s 26 June suggestion of a minimum interval per address block.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:13.059482+00:00.
- [“The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”](https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/08/15/12784/the-man-who-really-built-bitcoin/) — MIT Technology Review. Profile covering the faucet’s five free bitcoins and its 2012 closure, Satoshi putting Andresen’s email on the homepage, the December 2010 handover, the 2012 Bitcoin Foundation and his $209,648 pay in 2013, his Amherst home office, and van der Laan taking over as core maintainer in April 2014. Locator: Profile covering the faucet’s five free bitcoins and its 2012 closure, Satoshi putting Andresen’s email on the homepage, the December 2010 handover, the 2012 Bitcoin Foundation and his $209,648 pay in 2013, his Amherst home office, and van der Laan taking over as core maintainer in April 2014.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:20.918130+00:00.
- [“Development process straw-man”](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2367.0) — BitcoinTalk forum. Andresen’s 19 December 2010 announcement that, with Satoshi’s blessing and with great reluctance, he would take on more active project management, with his proposed GitHub workflow. Locator: Andresen’s 19 December 2010 announcement that, with Satoshi’s blessing and with great reluctance, he would take on more active project management, with his proposed GitHub workflow.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:04.093808+00:00.
- [Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright, [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), approved judgment](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf) — Courts and Tribunals Judiciary (High Court of England and Wales). Records the April 2011 delegation and alert key transfer to Andresen, his 29 March 2016 request list, the early April 2016 proof session, the 2 May 2016 blog posts, and expert agreement that the sessions could be spoofed and the public post was not a genuine proof. Locator: Records the April 2011 delegation and alert key transfer to Andresen, his 29 March 2016 request list, the early April 2016 proof session, the 2 May 2016 blog posts, and expert agreement that the sessions could be spoofed and the public post was not a genuine proof.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T15:04:18.422680+00:00.
- [BIP 101: Increase maximum block size](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitcoin/bips/927b6de9915c9262615a6399de51b200f81e5aa4/bip-0101.mediawiki) — Bitcoin Improvement Proposals repository (GitHub). The proposal text: replace the fixed one-megabyte limit with a size that grows predictably, starting at 8 million bytes in January 2016 and doubling every two years through 2036; status Closed. Locator: The proposal text: replace the fixed one-megabyte limit with a size that grows predictably, starting at 8 million bytes in January 2016 and doubling every two years through 2036; status Closed.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T15:04:18.537629+00:00.
- [“Major questions arise over Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto”](https://techcrunch.com/?p=1315525) — TechCrunch. Same-day reporting that Andresen, the Bitcoin Foundation’s chief scientist, had published a blog post backing Wright, that some suspected his account was hacked, and that the published signature was pulled from an existing blockchain transaction. Locator: Same-day reporting that Andresen, the Bitcoin Foundation’s chief scientist, had published a blog post backing Wright, that some suspected his account was hacked, and that the published signature was pulled from an existing blockchain transaction.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:18.785580+00:00.
- [“‘It Was a Mistake to Trust Craig Wright’: Bitcoin (BTC) Foundation’s Gavin Andresen”](https://u.today/it-was-a-mistake-to-trust-craig-wright-bitcoin-btc-foundations-gavin-andresen) — U.Today. Crypto-press reporting of the February 2023 note Andresen added to his 2016 post, quoting him that it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright and that he regretted getting sucked into the who-is-Satoshi game. Locator: Crypto-press reporting of the February 2023 note Andresen added to his 2016 post, quoting him that it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright and that he regretted getting sucked into the who-is-Satoshi game.. Retrieved: 2026-10-02T14:49:18.027592+00:00.

## Revision history

- 2026-09-23: Initial Bitcoin encyclopedia entry at this permanent URL.
- 2026-10-02: Revised direct answer to preserve source scope and qualifications.
- 2026-10-02: Added reusable claims, explicit source locators, and matching Markdown and JSON. This publishing change does not itself establish factual verification.

## Cite this entry

Degrees of Satoshi editorial project. “Gavin Andresen and the Bitcoin faucet: free coins, and the developer Satoshi handed Bitcoin to.” Published 2026-09-23; updated 2026-10-02. https://degreesofsatoshi.com/encyclopedia/gavin-andresen-and-the-bitcoin-faucet/