How to earn cryptocurrency?

Today, we will talk about honest ways to earn cryptocurrency. In some cases, a small investment may be required to generate income, but we will focus on methods that only require time and effort, suitable for both beginners and experienced users.

Games

Crypto games refer to online games that incorporate blockchain technology, such as their own cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and so on.

Usually, the concept of Play-to-Earn is used, where players earn tokens based on their in-game achievements.

The games themselves can be completely free or have some sort of "entrance fee" that involves purchasing a player's starter kit. However, even these fees are often recovered within a few days or, less commonly, weeks of regular gameplay. However, before investing in any game, make sure to verify its reliability, as sometimes financial pyramids may pose for crypto games.

It is better to invest in projects that have already proven themselves. Such projects purchase your time and attention in exchange for their in-game tokens, which can be sold on the open market.

Faucets

Cryptocurrency faucets are entire pages or small blocks on websites that offer the opportunity to receive a small amount of cryptocurrency for free.

Anyone can receive free cryptocurrency, regardless of their age, country, or work skills.

The working principle of all faucets is similar: accumulation occurs over a certain period of time. The user needs to click a button or complete another task and pass a "captcha" (anti-robot test). The most popular ones are Bitcoin faucets that distribute Bitcoin, and the accumulation is in satoshis: 1 satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC (one-hundred millionth part).

There are many lists of such websites on the Internet, so finding faucets should not be difficult. Most often, these sites earn money from advertising - while you wait for the payout, you will have to observe numerous banners from their partners. Also, before visiting faucets, make sure to install antivirus software on your computer to avoid potential threats from hidden miners or malicious scripts that may accidentally be included in the ad network.

Due to network restrictions on transferring small amounts, funds are often accumulated in the faucet's balance, and once a certain level is reached, the funds can be transferred to your own wallet. Each service sets its own minimum withdrawal amounts.

The amounts here are small, but there are no requirements for participants - simply visit the site, wait, and receive your coins.

By the way, our website also has a faucet, and you won't even need to view dozens of advertising banners. Just scroll down any page of the site and in the bottom left corner, you will find our faucet.

Bounty

Bounty is an advertising and information campaign in which participants receive rewards in the form of tokens of a new currency or other coins that are distributed to users for completing specific tasks aimed at popularizing the project. Earning on "bounties" does not involve investments, which attracts many people.

Due to higher payouts and more "prestigious" tasks compared to faucets, bounty project participants are subject to more serious requirements. At the very least, your social media accounts should not look abandoned and should not be a "dump" of advertisements. The more actively you engage in social networks or participate in forums, the more desirable you will be as a participant for companies.

A specific type of bounty is "signature campaigns" on major thematic forums, where participants place advertisers' banners in their signatures and receive a fixed payment for it.

We also have such a campaign on the BitcoinTalk forum, so if you have a "well-established" account on this forum, we would be happy to collaborate. However, other advertisers often appear on this forum as well, so keep an eye out for offers and develop your accounts.

Contests and promotions

Similarly to "bounties," companies can give out prizes for participating in their contests. We highlighted this separately because contests and promotions involve a different type of activity, often in the form of games. For the organizers of such events, community activity is important, rather than simply spreading advertisements.

You can find such contests on social media platforms related to the world of cryptocurrencies. However, be cautious if you are asked to invest money or pay a fee to receive a prize; make sure the contest organizer is legitimate. Any company, even if not related to cryptocurrencies, always includes taxes or transfer fees in the prize budget.

Affiliate and referral programs

The most popular but also the riskiest method of earning cryptocurrency without any investments is through affiliate and referral programs. Its essence is to attract new customers to companies and receive a fixed payment or a percentage of the company's profits for it.

Usually, participants in affiliate programs are not subject to strict requirements, but website owners, publishers, and other information dissemination resources find it easier to earn through this method.

However, it's important to remember that by inviting someone to a company with a bad reputation, you can also tarnish your own reputation. So, before starting to work, carefully study how much and for what the company pays, look for reviews of their affiliate program, and if it is a crypto company, make sure to find real transactions with payouts.

Speaking of the world of cryptocurrencies, almost everyone has their own affiliate or referral programs - cryptocurrency exchanges, exchangers, and monitoring platforms. Ours is no exception; anyone can register and earn by attracting new visitors to the site.

Freelancing for cryptocurrency

The most subtle way to earn cryptocurrency is to do regular work and simply receive your salary in cryptocurrency. We won't go into detail about this method since there are many articles about freelance work, and the only difference is in the currency you request payment in for the work done.

Airdrops

Here we smoothly transition to methods that require some investment. The first method is participating in airdrops.

On the one hand, an "Airdrop" is the same as the free distribution of tokens, similar to the "bounty" mentioned earlier, but participating in the distribution requires showing activity within the project. And such projects usually involve decentralized applications, and working with them implies paying network fees of the blockchain in which they are hosted.

This is about small amounts, but nevertheless, some money is already necessary to have in your crypto wallet to get started.

You can track such "drops" using special services, information aggregators - "airdrop calendars." Carefully calculate the risks of potential losses if the conditions cannot be met or if they are not sufficiently transparent.

NFT sales

The next most expensive way to earn money is by selling NFTs. There can be two tactics here, but both of them require a small, but initial capital.

For artists and designers, there is an opportunity to sell their own works through blockchain. Technically, this looks like the transfer of ownership rights (copyright) for a certain amount. Really good works can be successfully sold, although it will be difficult without investing in promoting your works.

But for everyone else, you can participate in token sales during their initial releases and profit from reselling tokens on the open market.

Such actions from large companies with a high profile do not happen often, but as practice shows, they almost always pay off. Therefore, you should not neglect them the next time you hear about something like that.

Masternodes

The next method in terms of investment size is setting up your own network node. In some blockchains, the support for the operability is paid for by the users of that network.

In a particular case, staking can be considered as a variation of such a way to earn money, but in practice, it involves very large investments and a long payback period. If you are interested in the details, you can read our material on DeFi (Part 2).

Instead, we suggest considering less expensive methods. For example, organizing your own channel in the Lightning Network. By doing this, you will not only promote a promising technology but also be able to earn small commissions. Although the organization of such a node implies a temporary freezing of funds, similar to staking or farming.

But new projects constantly appear in the crypto community that need user support, so we recommend tracking the emergence of new blockchains that reward the work of their masternodes.

Mining

The most expensive way to earn money among those that can be called cheap is mining. Of course, we are not talking about mining Bitcoin or other popular currencies, as mining them requires expensive equipment. But small young projects can be mined on a personal computer, although the profitability of such activity will depend on the cost of electricity.

We will not go into detail about mining, as there is an incredible amount of educational material available online. And if you have any questions, you can always ask "experienced colleagues" on forums like MiningClub.

We deliberately did not consider methods such as trading, staking, and similar activities. These methods of earning money require a lot of experience and large investments. Perhaps we will discuss this separately in our upcoming materials for advanced users.