Best ways to earn free crypto
You most likely heard already the famous catchphrase many people use about crypto: “don’t invest more money than you can afford to lose”. The problem with this phrase is that it assumes you have the money you could afford to lose. For many people, risking even a small percentage of their income is a no-go. You’re maybe wondering if there are alternative ways of getting an amount of crypto for free (that you could then sell or multiply). “The answer will shock you!” Nah, not really!:) In this case, it would just confirm your idea: yes, there are ways to earning crypto for free.
In this article, I will review a list of the best ways to earn free crypto that works for me, and will also include some things you should stay away from. Some of these methods are worth it, others are a waste of your time, while others are simply scams. So let’s jump right in!
Best ways to earn free crypto
This is one of my favorites. You can simply create a Publish0x account and activate it. Then you can earn small amounts of ETH, AMPL, or IFARM tokens each day by simply tipping the author of an article. Publish0x will actually pay the tips, you just have to choose how much to tip the author and how much to tip yourself. Also, if you have a few topics in mind and you want to publish some articles, you have a chance of earning even more. Pretty cool. To redeem your earnings once you reach a significant amount, Publish0x requires an ETH address from your Kucoin wallet.
Do you watch stuff on YouTube for free? Here’s an alternative that actually pays you in crypto to watch videos. Odysee (formerly known as LBRY) is a blockchain-based video streaming platform. They are building a decentralized alternative to YouTube. Currently, you can find some quality content or channels on various topics.
My experience with them has been positive so far. I’ve gained ~$200 from selling the coins I earned after watching around 350 videos from the same channels I would have watched on YouTube. Not really life-changing money, but still better than what YouTube pays. To start earning, you have to create and verify an Odysee account, subscribe to channels you like, start watching stuff. Each day, you can earn a random LBRY amount between 0.2 and 100 coins by simply watching one video. Rinse and repeat. Same as for Publish0x, you can also publish videos and gain even more coins.
Probably you’ve heard of Coinmarketcap, that website that lists literally all the coins. They also offer a way to earn crypto by watching videos and completing some simple quizzes. Coinmarketcap is owned by Binance, and you will need a Binance account in order to get paid or trade your earned coins.
After your complete a quiz on Coinmaketcap Earn, it will ask you to provide your Binance UserID – you will need to copy it from your account dashboard. That’s it. When the campaign launches, you will receive your crypto rewards on Binance.
Coinbase is a well-known crypto exchange that offers rewards for watching videos or for completing quizzes, in a similar way with Coinmarketcap Earn. All you have to sacrifice is your personal details, meaning they require customer verification in order to create an account to qualify for the rewards. Once you are verified, you can earn a crypto equivalent of something like $3, $5, or even more, depending on the running promotion at the time of registering. Not bad, not terrible. You can then sell or trade your earnings directly on Coinbase or withdraw them to your crypto wallet.
Also one of my favorites. Brave is one of the best web browsers I’ve ever used. It is not only more private, memory efficient, and faster than Chrome or Firefox, but it actually pays you in BAT tokens just for browsing. The rewards are based on the number and type of ads you click on. Earning the equivalent of $3 to $10 each month is very likely. There are a couple of cons also. Not all browser extensions that work for Chrome also will work for Brave (for example Google Translate). Also, to withdraw your coins, you will first need to set up an Uphold wallet, which requires KYC.
You can earn CHSB tokens by installing the SwissBorg app and predicting the price of Bitcoin. Bonus points for recurring correct predictions or simply for making a prediction each day of the week. The earned tokens can be multiplied within the app by staking them, converted into BTC or ETH, or sent to an exchange.
This is a platform that offers multiple ways of earning free crypto, including surveys, watching videos, viewing ads, playing various games, or installing apps. The rewards from Cointiply can be redeemed to your wallet once a certain amount of coins is reached.
Ever wondered if there is a worthy alternative to Google? Presearch is trying to build just that. They pay in crypto for every web search made through their platform. Each search can be preconfigured to fetch websites, images, videos, news, or even filtered based on well-known platforms such as Amazon, Reddit, Twitter, StackExchange, Github, or CoinMarketCap. PRE, the native token, is currently worth around $0.05, and each search query gets you 0.12 PRE. There is a daily limit of max 30 queries, meaning you can earn up to 3.6 PRE per day. Once you reach 1000 PRE, you can withdraw them to an exchange or wallet. A cool concept overall.
9. Twitter giveaways
This one is only if you’re considering yourself lucky. From time to time, big crypto whales/influencers on Twitter offer giveaways (usually $100 up to $500) to a lucky person in exchange for shares/retweets. Not sure how the winners are selected in most of these contests, since I never won anything, but it could be worth a try.
To find some of the best-known crypto accounts on Twitter, check out the crypto resources section.
List of ways to earn crypto with a small investment
Imagine a real-time football fantasy game, but where you can earn ETH or NFT’s if your team is good enough. Sorare is a fantasy football online game where you can buy and sell NFT player cards. You can also use these cards for building five-player teams. Once you have a team, you can compete in real-life football games, your players scoring points based on their real-time performance on the pitch. If your team gets enough points, you earn a card or an amount of ETH. As a football fan, I can say that this game is really addictive. Once you build a competitive team, the chances of earning bigger prizes become very good.
If you would like to know all the details on what Sorare works and how you could profit from playing, you can find it right here. Also, signing up on Sorare with my referral link will get you one free Limited card worth at least $5 once you win your first five auctions.
2. Crypto mining
In case you have some GPU or hard drive laying around and want to put it to good use to earn you some crypto, then you should consider mining. With a PC equipped with a GPU such as RX580 or GeForce RTX2060, you could earn somewhere between $30 and $60 per month, depending on your local cost for electricity. A cheaper alternative would be mining using an HDD. For example, you could expect similar returns by mining STORJ coin using an external HDD and a Raspberry Pi. Check out this guide and learn how it works.
As it implies some deeper technical knowledge, mining may not be for everyone. The cost of hardware can be a big minus, but if you already have an idle gaming PC or HDD for example, it is definitely worth it.
3. Crypto staking
If you have at least $100 to invest, and you want to earn some crypto from your investment, staking is one of the easiest ways to do just that. You can simply buy a solid coin that offers at least 5% staking rewards (see ETH, ADA, ALGO, ATOM, ICX). Staking only becomes profitable in the longer term, as it allows the compounding of yearly returns. Even more so when you combine it with a possible rise in the price of your staked coin. If you would like to dig deeper into which coins offer the best rewards, check out this website. Also, if you want to read more on how to get started with crypto staking, please check out my previous post here.
List of things to stay away from
Since not all ways of earning crypto advertised as "free" are not really free or worth anything, there are some things I would recommend to stay away from. These might include:
1. Crypto faucets
These are places where you can receive small amounts of coins per day, in exchange for solving a captcha. This is what they claim, at least. In practice, most of the time the faucet is empty or you receive a very very small amount. Not worth the effort, in my opinion.
2. Most crypto Android/iOS apps and games
I have tried several. The amount of playing time required for these games to gain at least $1 worth of crypto is way too much for me. Might be a good way of passing time on a train/bus/toilet, but you shouldn’t set high hopes on earning too much. Examples of such games or apps include: Crypto Treasures, Crypto Cards, Sweatcoin, Stormgain, Crypto Heroes, Bitcoin Blast, CryptoPop, and the list goes on.
That’s it for now. Will update the list of best ways to earn free crypto once I discover new or better alternatives. Please feel free to drop me a message if you have any suggestions or questions.
