Abra is giving away $25 of Bitcoin this Christmas – but there’s a catch

Cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Abra is trying to add a little holiday cheer to the current bear market bear market by giving away Bitcoin.

This morning, in an email to customers, Abra announced a promotion which would see new investors of its BIT10 “exchange traded fund” (ETF) style token receive $25 of Bitcoin at no cost. But in this life nothing ever comes for free, and this is no different.

In the small print are terms and conditions, one of which which states, “any investments in BIT10 totaling less than $1,000 equivalent during the promotion period will not be eligible for this cashback reward.”

So, to be eligible for the free Bitcoin you have to purchase $1,000 worth of the BIT10 token – before the December 31 – making it a 2.5% reward. It sounds kind of OK, but considering it’s only available if you buy in with $1,000 it seems unattainable for a huge amount of hobbyist investors.

It’s also worth considering what the BIT10 token is. If you haven’t heard of it, the BIT10 is a market tracking index token run by Bitwise Asset Management and tracks the top 10 cryptocurrencies each month. If the market grows, the value of the BIT10 grows, and of course the opposite can happen too. The BIT10 is native to Abra, meaning it can only be bought and sold on the Abra app.

Considering the entire cryptocurrency market has been on a nose-dive since earlier this year, market tracking tokens aren’t a great idea right now. If you buy into this token you have to be very certain the market is about to pick up. But of course, no one can ever be sure.