So I looked back to faucets again, and was thinking of creating one myself.  But goodness, I was quickly reminded quickly about all the scammers, viruses, and other bad sites that advertise on them.  I would rather not deal with that, but if someone else wants to create a unique niche all the more power to them.   For those who don't know, faucets are a very bad way, but free way, to acquire pathetically small amounts of crypto by viewing oodles and oodles of ads and filling out a captcha that is supposed to determine if you are a human or a bot.  Basically something to consider doing in the morning trying to wake up and at night before calling it a day;  a near complete waste of time otherwise.

 I've been considering buying a little crypto for quite a while, but I have no idea if the next substantial movement in the short term will be up or down.  The more bitcoin goes up, the more hesitant I become-after all, the traditional game is buy low sell high.  And there really is nothing that backs up crypto if it does crash, although in the long run I have more faith in crypto than many of the world currencies including the US dollar....just not in the short term.

  So I thought about something with more tangible value, like stocks.  So today I did a google search for faucet penny stocks.  I didn't find any.  So I am curious as to why not.  And while the search was for penny stocks, I don't mean a stock that trades for under $5, but a stock that literally trades for less than a penny....well maybe less than a quarter.

  So what would be the benefits of a stock faucet.  I suppose getting people to learn more about small companies. It could create adverting opportunities for the companies selected, and such exposure could help them find venture capital, and I suspect most people will just hodl which reduces the amount of stock in circulation that can help increase shareholder value.  Although it may be possible such faucet could acquire the shares through 424b4 (new shares) which puts the capital into the company itself which can be very beneficial to small companies-especially small companies whose ability to make a profit may be limited by debt payments. So choosing candidates that could potentially be swung over to the profitable side should be screened if anyone engages in such an idea.

   Although many penny stocks are just junk and may ultimately go to zero, a small company, if it grows, tends to have a great deal of potential.  In contrasts, if a large company like wal-mart grows it may cannibalize existing sales, and it isn't unheard of for some giants to close down stores to increase profitability. 

  Anything to do with stocks are going to be highly regulated, which may be why we don't see any stock faucets.  Usually ownership of stock includes the benefit of voting in the company.  The transfer of actual ownership may be a literal pain in the butt, unless cashed out in crypto (bitbean would be a good candidate as it is POS) or if the price goes up significantly in value then it might be affordable to do so by USPS.  I have no idea what the SEC's position is on virtual ownership of stocks, but it looks like it may fall under a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/reportspubs/investor-publications/investorpubsholdsechtm.html">street name registration.</a>  And if so that basically puts the owner in a situation of being a dealer/broker, although the SEC (link above) notes that not all broker/dealers have to get insurance from the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerssipchtm.html">Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)</a> .  I am not an attorney, and SEC stuff is not my forte.  It looks like there is a heckuva lot of regulations for brokers both state and federal.

  So from there penny stocks can be hard to buy, and difficult to sell, and there can be great volatility.  If someone does try this, they may not want to base a reward or a trade based upon the present market value-someone could easily game the system if you were to do that.  But rather the minimum reward to be based upon your weighted purchase price after commission of shares not yet allocated to users.  And most importantly the sell price has to protect you the operator.  After all, you aren't going to pay a $5 commission every time someone wants to sell 10 cents worth of stock, nor do you want someone who paid $10 for a single share in the open market as the only trade for the day  demands that you buy back 1000 shares at $10 each.  So unless the trade is large enough to justify a commission where there is adequate liquidity in the market, plan on a sell transaction merely being absorbed back into the system.  Thus the sale price needs to protect your profit, or it could quickly turn into a loss.  For example, it might be based upon the means of the next 24 hours of trading [in the event of a crash, but not to fall below that users cost to buy the security] of trading and the 90 day moving average with the upper 10% removed as to protect against sham purchases [such as the single share $10 purchase].  Why a defense against a crash?  Suppose you have on your system 10000 penny stocks that went up from a penny each up to $5, and at the beginning of the crash your users redeemed when the market price was $2.50, and at the end of the day you can't even give it away.  That's almost a 25k loss if you allowed it to be redeemed at $2.50.  The risk and customer service system can be refined by whoever wants to engage in this idea, but it does need to be discussed....and it whatever is decided would need to be made clear to your end users in an EULA.

  If someone had the time, and capital to risk, and want to peruse all the sec regulations by all means-go ahead.