The play-to-earn gaming craze might have faded, but believe it or not, there remains a slew of crypto-infused games out there that let you earn Bitcoin while you play—and you don’t have to buy any NFTs to get started.
Solitaire is one of the most popular games to be injected full of Bitcoin rewards on iOS and Android, with no fewer than three competing takes that let you stack sats (or satoshis, a.k.a. 1/100,000,000 BTC) while stacking digital playing cards: THNDR Games’ Club Bitcoin: Solitaire, Bling Financial’s Bitcoin Solitaire, and Viker’s Solitaire – Card Game 2023.
All three games are broadly similar, serving up a simple game of digital solitaire that’s chock-full of obnoxious video ads. But all three games also truly do let you earn Bitcoin along the way and then withdraw it to a wallet. Keep your expectations in check, however: we’re talking pennies’ worth of BTC across hours of gameplay.
And I’d know, because I played approximately two hours of each game to see how much Bitcoin I could earn from each. Here’s a brief review of each game (played on iPhone), along with a verdict on which Bitcoin solitaire app is most worth your time and attention.
Club Bitcoin: Solitaire
THNDR Games makes an array of Bitcoin-awarding mobile games, including Tetro Tiles, and its Club Bitcoin: Solitaire (iPhone, Android) is by far the most visually appealing of the bunch. It spruces up this very traditional card game with a little bit of visual panache, and the streamlined interface with one tap to send any card to its rightful pile feels intuitive and responsive.
But it’s stingy with the sats. You earn tickets while playing, and those are put into prize draws that could earn you large-to-small bundles of satoshis. But after two hours of total gameplay, I’d only earned 59 sats… that’s less than $0.02 worth. Plus, you have to redeem the sats and withdraw them to a wallet within a few days, otherwise they disappear.
Club Bitcoin was the most enjoyable of the trio in terms of look and feel, but also provided the least amount of rewards. Your mileage may vary, however. No matter how it shakes out, you’ll still have to sit through some truly laborious video ads for scammy-looking mobile games.
Bitcoin Solitaire
Bling Financial is another publisher with a heap of crypto-tinged mobile games, and Bitcoin Solitaire (iPhone, Android)—created with PlayDay Studios—was by far the most generous game of this trio when it comes to earning satoshis.
Granted, it’s all relative: after two hours of play, I had earned enough “Bling Points” to withdraw 339 satoshis, or about $0.09 worth. That’s still basically nothing, but it’s more than five times the amount of Bitcoin that I earned while playing Club Bitcoin, with a similar amount of obnoxious ads permeating the experience.
Bling’s Bitcoin Solitaire has a more spartan design than Club Bitcoin, but the interface is just as responsive and it serves up an enjoyable game of mobile solitaire. I noticed that I won a lot more games in Bitcoin Solitaire than the other two games, though. It feels tuned to go easy on you, but when you’re coasting to victory and racking up sats, it’s tough to complain.
Solitaire – Card Game 2023
There’s an odd discrepancy between the iPhone and Android versions: the iOS game has the bland title above, while the Android one has “Earn Bitcoin” in the title. But appearances are a bit deceiving here, as both games may ultimately earn you tiny amounts of Bitcoin.
In this case, Viker’s take on solitaire is solid but not quite as streamlined as the others. A double tap is required on any card to send it to its rightful destination, which makes the flow a bit less speedy than in the other games, and the interface—which includes a banner ad—isn’t nearly as punchy and stylish as in Club Bitcoin.
All that said, this is a totally solid game of smartphone solitaire, with just about the same amount of clunky, time-consuming, full-screen video ads as the others. And overall, the payout puts this game right in the middle of the others—I earned 122 satoshis in approximately two hours of gameplay, coming out to just over $0.03 worth of BTC.
Which should you play?
After earning less than $0.15 total for six full hours of gameplay, it’s fair to say that none of these games are likely to grant you any meaningful amount of cryptocurrency. If you care about solitaire gameplay most of all, then you can probably find a mobile rendition with more polish and less-intrusive ads.
But among games with crypto rewards, Bling’s Bitcoin Solitaire hits the sweet spot. It’s not the most stylish-looking of the bunch, but the gameplay is smooth and enjoyable and I earned the most BTC by far out of any of these games… even if it was barely a dime’s worth.
