Following the devastating Makop Ransomware attack on the servers used to host three of the internet’s oldest and most reliable free bitcoin faucets, the owners have announced that they have been rebuilt and relaunched.
Moonbit.co.in, moondoge.co.in and moonliteco.in were all taken down by the attackers, who then demanded $200,000 to release the infected files.
Earlier this month the people who run CoinPot, the bitcoin microwallet, issued a detailed statement explaining the situation which can be read here.
In a nutshell, CoinPot wasn’t prepared to pay the ransom (even if they could afford it) and therefore lost some key data essential to the faucets’ continuing functionality.
They decided the most prudent course of action was to completely rebuild the faucets, which are more than five years old, with up-to-date scripting to prevent any future attacks.
The work on the new faucets is now complete and this week they were officially relaunched.
The good news is that all balances held by users before the attack remain intact and no-one will have lost any bitcoins. Withdrawals will continue as normal as well.
But there’s bad news for any long-term users who have built up referrals. This data has been lost for all three faucets meaning this revenue stream will have to be rebuilt.
As an incentive to get people engaging with the faucets again, CoinPot has set all loyalty bonuses (built up through daily use) at 100%. The mystery bonus will also be set at the same level for seven days to give people a few extra coins.
Background: CoinPot is one of the internet’s most popular free bitcoin microwallets. It’s used to collect tiny fractions of bitcoin claimed from faucets (more about these in a minute) to enable them to be transferred to a conventional bitcoin wallet, such as Coinbase.
A bitcoin faucet is a special website designed to give away fractions of bitcoins – known as Satoshi – and other cryptocurrencies for free to a) Get new people involved in cryptocurrency and b) Earn revenue by displaying adds alongside the faucets.
Here’s a list of high-paying bitcoin faucets, some of which also offer surveys, games and other ways of earning cryptocurrency and cash, to continue your journey.
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