ZBD (Zebeedee) Review

URL: Official website (requires app download from Android or iOS app store, not available for Chromebooks)

Essentially a GPT site in app form but with its own integrated bitcoin wallet, ZBD has some other unique qualities like a close tie-up with assorted "bitcoin earner" game developers (primarily Fumb Games) and bots to exchange Bitcoin via Discord and Telegram

NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT

As mentioned at the outset, as far as earning goes, it's basically a GPT site with game and other offers, surveys and such. All activities pay out in SATs, directly to your ZBD wallet (a little more on that later). The "main thing" that's always accessible is the Daily Poll, which has you answer a question and then view a typical mobile video ad. You have to do that three days in a row and then you get a random amount of SATs up to 100. 

Surveys are provided by something called Prime Survey, which I'm not sure if it is the same company as Prime Opinion (a major survey site that isn't always too popular with online side hustlers). Whatever the case, from skimming it here and there it seems to offer insulting pay, like 20 cents per five minutes or a whopping $2.40 per hour. Not even sure about survey quality or screenouts as I'm not even going in for that kind of money.

It has a fairly robust selection of games and offers of the usual GPT sort, but you always have to do the mental math of $1 equaling roughly 1000 SATs (give or take based on the current Bitcoin market). Some offers I've seen are competitive with the better "regular" GPT sites, some not so much, but you have to deal with the extra step of not just SAT payment but also dealing with the app's own unique Bitcoin wallet.

One last point of note is that this app has a unique and close relationship with developer Fumb Games, who have been pumping out about a dozen "earn bitcoin within the game" titles over the last few years. If you want to actually collect the SATs you earn from those games, you'll have to get ZBD's app going and set up their wallet. 

SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY

The group behind ZBD is Zebedee LLC, founded in 2019. It's based in New Jersey and headed up by Simon Cowell (but not THAT one ... he must get really tired of this). While a fairly new company, it has some major investment money behind it including some big-name venture capital firms and Square Enix on the gaming end of things (though you don't see their presence at all in the app or ecosystem as of this writing).

INTERNATIONAL ACCESS

I'm not seeing a good list of countries available anywhere. The current Terms of Service only specify the US and EU. Search capture from an older version of the site suggests it might also be available in Brazil and the Philippines. Beyond that, I guess it's just check your local app store and see.

STARTING OUT

Download from one of the two big app stores and go. A KYC may be required to cash out eventually, but seemingly only for certain methods and conditions right now.

They also do have periodic "leaderboard tournaments" for bonus SATs and 2x reward periods and such you might want to keep an eye on. And there is a Friday "vibes party" on Discord at 4 PM EST that promises free SAT giveaways, though I haven't checked this out personally yet.

PROBLEMS WITH ZBD

I don't know if this is a universal issue, or was just temporary to several months ago, but at first I had one heck of a time getting this app to work. It just did not seem to care for any internet connection it was presented with; not even home wired, direct cable tethering to my phone, nothing was good enough for it! Eventually the app had an update after a couple months and started working for me all the sudden, and now it's not being fussy about even public WiFi connections. But after leaving it idle for a few weeks I did have to reinstall it to get it working again as it would just get stuck on its logo bootup screen forever. It can be very persnickety to run.

They recently listed some sort of web browser login option, at app.zbd.gg, but I've yet to be able to actually get that to work.

FINAL VERDICT - May Work For You

ZBD is a more ambitious project than usual for a GPT site, and it has some unique potential. It has its own wallet (that can further be accessed with extensions for most of the major browsers including Brave), it has little additional features like being able to add SAT tipping to Telegram and Discord channels (so long as all involved are using the wallet). And it has a pretty good referral program whereby you can earn 20% of a referral's earnings in their first year and 30% once you refer more than five (though you have to KYC first to unlock this). There's also the direct tie-ins with a whole slew of "bitcoin miner" games now.

They always seem to be working on it, and there's lots of room for growth (and it has real investment money behind it), so I think it's at least worth keeping around and keeping an eye on. But as of this writing, it just isn't a great earner. It has some OK GPT offers here and there, competitive with other big sites, but with the added hassle of getting money out of its unique ecosystem. The "bitcoin earner" games just don't tend to pay much, for example Bitcoin Miner now limiting you to withdrawing only about 33 cents per day from it. And there isn't really anything else of note going on, other than bad surveys and very tiny and limited rewards for watching video ads. If there's any big future I think it's the in-app SAT-earning games finding a way to offer more than they do now.

Links

Official Reddit

How to withdraw to Kraken

How to withdraw to CashApp

Ember Fund Review

URL:  Official website (requires Android or iOS app download from official app stores, does not work on Chromebook)

A daily SATs earning app that became popular in recent years, Ember Fund may now be entering its "cash out and crash out" phase (at least as far as earning possibility goes)

NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT

Ember Fund's big attraction has long been its "free daily mining." Like Pi, this isn't really mining, it's basically opting into an airdrop daily by opening the app and tapping a button. But the long and short is you get 24 SATs per day ... in "casino fun money." You have to then take it to the app's various slots and sports betting and play it through at least once to get redeemable funds. 

When the app first got big a few years ago, it didn't require casino playthrough and you could get at least $2 per day in SATs this way. You could also boost this daily earning with referrals. Well, as always, times have changed and the deal is now nerfed. 

So what else is going on? Aside from the gambling, Ember Fund is ostensibly a GPT site, but one with far FAR fewer options than the big names. If you click  on "games" you're presented with one (1) game option to play for not-great pay in SATs; take it or leave it. We can find a bit more going on hidden under the "games" tab at the bottom of the app, scrolling past the casino stuff to a "Tasks" section. Checking out "games" here just loops back to the one single offer, but there's also a small offerwall that only had two options whenever I've checked it out (signing up for a Dave account with your paycheck and something else). 

It gets better when you get to the withdrawal restrictions! This very recently changed from 10k SATs to 50k (about $10 to $50 USD), costs a $2 processing fee to transfer to a private wallet, can only be done once per month, and ONLY in the second half of the month for some reason. 

SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY

Crunchbase lists the founder's names and a San Francisco phone number, but beyond that it's kind of hard to find out who these people are or where they are, even from the official website and app. 

A 2019 SEC filing indicates they were at least once actually headquartered in Los Angeles as something called "OpenDeal Portal LLC" ... which comes up with a New York City address.

This thing has been running legitimately for at least a few years without big complaints about stiffing or ripoffs, but all that runaround and opaqueness is at least something of a red flag.

INTERNATIONAL ACCESS

Their official page on this seems to have vanished; the only official word beyond that is "it's available in most countries, check your app store to see."

STARTING OUT

Download and go, but you may have to KYC with an ID to cash out. 

You can purchase optional "Ember Tokens," at about one million for $1 USD, which buy you temporary power-ups of various sorts, the most notable being extending your free mining session for up to seven days. You can also purchase no ads for seven days (you have to watch a video ad to click your daily mining button), new avatars and something called "Streak Freeze" that I can't find any details on. There are periodic offers where you get some bonus SATs thrown in with these purchases too. But don't get too excited about that 1 mil for $1, most of these power-ups start at 1 mil for the lowest level.

PROBLEMS WITH EMBER FUND

It's already something of a questionable proposition, but longtime users are up in arms right now about changes introduced in the last couple of weeks. We mentioned the cashout requirement going from 10k to 50k SATs, but there is also word the free mining is being limited to just 10 days out of every month. And free tournaments for slots and such were a big draw, but those seem to have been entirely eliminated recently as well. 

FINAL VERDICT - MAY WORK FOR YOU

I'm not ready to "not recommended" this one just yet, as maybe it'll make a rebound to something closer to what it was two years ago and/or maybe you can find some utility by paying for mining and working the casino games somehow (I don't think it's worth the effort). But to me this has the feeling of being something that started out as a legitimate crypto project a few years ago and gradually shifted to being an unlicensed casino as whatever that original plan was went sideways.

As far as the casino aspect goes, it is apparently a fee-free source of sports betting, though that's an aspect for a different sort of site to get into. However, I presume they're freely offering this on US app stores due to the "sweepstakes loophole", which has already been closed in about 20 states and two more (Oklahoma and Utah) are very likely to pass similar laws by the end of 2026. 

Personally, I think I'm about to just go blow my few dollars of accumulated faux-SATs at a slot or something and delete it to stop the notifications. I'm just not seeing the potential here.

Links

User Reddit