The original Bitcoin faucet gave away 5 BTC per visitor in 2010. Gavin Andresen built it to prove the network worked. Sixteen years later, Jack Dorsey's Block is reviving the format, but the economics tell a different story.
Block's "Bitcoin Day" campaign launches today, April 6, and runs through April 10 or until a $1 million BTC pool runs dry. Users can earn up to $80 in bitcoin by completing three tasks through Cash App, each tied to a different piece of Block's product stack.
$5 to Buy, $25 to Spend, $50 to Self-Custody
The reward structure is deliberately lopsided. Buying $10 or more of bitcoin on Cash App earns $5 in BTC. Paying a Square merchant with bitcoin through Cash App earns $25. Withdrawing bitcoin to Bitkey, Block's self-custody hardware wallet, earns $50.
That $50 reward is the largest by a wide margin, and it is the one that requires users to move coins off the platform entirely. Block is paying people to leave its custodial environment. In an industry where most exchanges design friction into withdrawals, that inversion is worth noting.
The three-step funnel walks users through Block's entire bitcoin stack in sequence: Cash App handles the on-ramp, Square handles the payment rail, and Bitkey handles the vault. Each reward unlocks only after completing the previous step.
Eligibility and Limits
The campaign is limited to U.S. residents aged 18 and older with identity-verified Cash App accounts in good standing. New York residents are excluded from the Square merchant payment and Bitkey withdrawal rewards, likely due to the state's BitLicense restrictions on certain crypto activities.
Sponsored accounts are also ineligible. The $1 million pool is first-come, first-served. At $80 per full completion, roughly 12,500 users can collect the maximum reward before the pool empties. Partial completions (just the $5 buy reward, for example) stretch the pool further but reduce per-user payouts.
Why Block Is Subsidizing Self-Custody
Block holds 8,883 BTC on its balance sheet, worth roughly $613 million at today's price of $69,042 as of April 6, 2026. Spending $1 million to seed adoption across its product suite is a rounding error.
The real play is Bitkey. Block's hardware wallet uses a 2-of-3 multisig model: one key on the device, one on the user's phone, and one held by Block as a recovery backstop. It launched in late 2023 and has struggled to compete against established names like Ledger and Trezor. Attaching a $50 bounty to Bitkey activation converts a promotional campaign into a user acquisition channel.
Block's broader bitcoin strategy has narrowed significantly over the past year. The company sold its music division (Tidal) and wound down several non-bitcoin projects to concentrate resources on Cash App's bitcoin features, Square merchant payments, the Proto mining hardware division, and Spiral, its open-source bitcoin development fund.
The Faucet as an Onboarding Funnel
The original faucet was a proof of concept. Andresen wanted people to hold bitcoin so they could test sending it. There was no product to sell.
Block's version is a product demo disguised as a giveaway. Each reward tier requires deeper engagement with a Block product. The $5 tier gets users into Cash App's bitcoin buying flow. The $25 tier introduces bitcoin as a payment method at physical merchants. The $50 tier installs Bitkey and teaches users how to move coins to self-custody.
For crypto card users, the Square merchant payment step is the most relevant. Cash App already supports bitcoin spending through its Visa debit card, and Block has been expanding bitcoin acceptance across its Square merchant network. The $25 reward for paying a merchant with bitcoin is Block testing whether direct BTC payments can coexist with the card-based spending model that dominates the crypto card market.
How It Compares to Crypto Card Rewards
The $80 maximum across three tasks is modest compared to ongoing cashback rewards from dedicated crypto cards. A card offering 3% back on $1,000 in monthly spending returns $30 per month indefinitely. Block's $80 is a one-time payout.
The difference is the entry cost. Most crypto cards with meaningful rewards require either a purchase (Bitkey retails at $150) or token staking. Block's faucet requires only a $10 bitcoin buy and a merchant payment. The friction is low, and the entire sequence can be completed in under an hour.
Whether Block can convert faucet participants into long-term Bitkey users and Cash App bitcoin spenders is the open question. Promotional campaigns with crypto incentives tend to attract reward hunters who churn after collection. Block's bet is that the physical Bitkey device creates enough switching cost to retain a meaningful percentage.
Overview
Block launches Bitcoin Day today, distributing $1 million in BTC through a three-tier reward system tied to Cash App purchases, Square merchant payments, and Bitkey self-custody withdrawals. The campaign runs April 6 through 10 and is limited to U.S. residents with verified Cash App accounts. The largest single reward, $50, goes to users who move bitcoin off the platform and into Block's Bitkey hardware wallet. BTC is trading at $69,042 as of April 6, 2026, up 3.4% in 24 hours, with the Fear and Greed index at 36 (Fear).
