*** This is posted by one of the XRB devs on discord group. It explains the history of XRB distribution and faucet ***
Because it gave so much value compared to privately funded faucets, it attracted both those in third world circumstances who could actually make a living from using the faucet, as well as "entrepreneurs" who would use the labor of indigent for their own profit. At 1k satoshi price, we were essentially giving away 28 btc weekly. People claimed, sold on the market, and did as they pleased. Pools offered direct btc payments from working on the faucet but kept a hefty cut (around 30%). Others found ways to use machine learning to solve the captchas more rapidly. In the end, it became a mess of people only concerned with selling for btc and cashing out, not wanting to actually learn about or really use RaiBlocks, and thus causing massive trouble for the early exchange(s) that traded XRB. Cryptopia delisted us due to the volume of support tickets, some say even due to death threats from angry users. Ultimately we found that while a very fair method of distributing, the Faucet model was causing far too much harm to RaiBlocks as a currency, as a project. Approx 30 percent distributed was enough, so we ended it and destroyed the remaining funds.
Whatever negatives there may have been, we can say, really, that the distribution of RaiBlocks could be considered the first implementation of Universal/Basic income in the cryptocurrency space. Philipinos, Venezuelans, and many others in distressed economies were able to provide for themselves using it.