Ropsten Ethereum Faucet: How it works

This series of tutorial documents my process of building an Ethereum faucet on the Ropsten Testnet. The development of a faucet was borne out of necessity. In my regular engagements and workshops, I frequently give out ETHs to participants to let them try out stuff. But being new to these things, it isn’t so straightforward to simply transfer ETHs to them. And sometimes, the various Ropsten faucets out there don’t perform too reliably.

So I built my own faucet.

Photo by Kazuky Akayashi on Unsplash

This tutorial will be presented in 4 parts:

1. Ropsten Ethereum Faucet: How it works
2. Ropsten Ethereum Faucet: Smart Contract
3. Ropsten Ethereum Faucet: JSON Web Service
4. Ropsten Ethereum Faucet: Web App

Faucet Logic

Here’s how my Ropsten Faucet works. In designing the faucet, I decided that the user should be able to receive free ETHs simply by telling the Faucet his Ropsten wallet’s address. And he should be able to do so without needing to have an Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask connected to his browser.