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I signed up for Finder’s Bitcoin Drop Party… and some Bitcoin actually dropped
Coinhead
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Finder is having a block party and everyone is invited. Well, sort of.
To celebrate the launch of its crypto trading feature, Finder is giving away between $5-$100 worth of Bitcoin, as part of its Bitcoin Drop Party, which will run until 5pm AEDT on Monday the 7th of March.
There’s a further $200,000 in Bitcoin up for grabs for users who either buy crypto in the Finder app, set up a recurring trade, or invite a friend using a promo code that is automatically generated when you claim your Bitcoin drop, and which offers $10 each when you invite a friend.
Naturally, I was suspicious.
The internet has been flooded with stories of people who have fallen prey to Bitcoin giveaway scams.
For example in March 2021, the BBC reported that a German man was duped by a Bitcoin giveaway scam in which a fake Elon Musk account was setup encouraging people to send anything from 0.1 to 20 Bitcoin in order to receive double the amount in return.
Similar accounts have attempted to run scams by impersonating Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin and TRON founder Justin Sun.
So I took one for the team and went through the whole process, which was relatively simple.
Though I wouldn’t recommend clicking on random email links promising you free Bitcoin, I did break this rule — in the name of journalism.
I visited the link, tapped on the coin, which spat out $7.82 worth of free Bitcoin along with a QR code which took me to the app store (if you’re already signed up it’ll take you straight to the app).
I downloaded the app. Signed up. And there in my wallet was my 0.00014802 Bitcoin, which is apparently what $7.82 buys me at 9.54am on a Wednesday. The whole thing took about three minutes.
Seems legit. But we got in touch with Finder founder, Fred Schebesta just to be sure.
Schebesta says he’s not concerned that his promotion would be associated with recent scams as “Finder is a trusted, legitimate business that people recognise”.
“We have over 400,000 Australians who now use the Finder app and the Drop Party is hosted in the app and on our website,” he said.
So, how does it work? Schebesta explained that the company is buying Bitcoin live as each person participates in the promotion.
“What actually happens is when someone goes to claim some Bitcoin, we actually go onto the market and buy Bitcoin as each person claims a certain dollar amount, and put it in their wallet. We’re using the brokerage system within the Finder app. If you were going to buy more Bitcoin in the app itself, we’re just using that exact same function.”
Unfortunately, this promotion is not available to Coinheads in the ACT. You can thank the bureaucrats in Canberra for that one (the competition licence didn’t come through in time, apparently).
