The last couple of years have marked an increase in the overall public awareness of cryptocurrencies worldwide. In return, a larger number of people have expressed their interest in purchasing or earning digital currencies.
While buying your favorite coin via an exchange is likely the easiest way to enter the cryptocurrency market, this industry is full of surprises – therefore a noticeable amount of coin can be earned for free.
As such, this article will cover the main methods that can be leveraged in order to obtain free crypto. Do keep in mind that most of these methods require a bit of effort, since nothing is ever truly free. However, these methods do not entail having to work a fulltime job, nor do they imply any monetary investment from your part.
Free Crypto from Coinbase Earn
Coinbase is largely seen as one of the most popular digital currency exchanges, especially in the United States.
While the platform facilitates the purchase and sale of crypto, it also offers its users the opportunity to earn several coins, including but not limited to Orchid, Tezos, Dai, EOS, Stellar, Zcash, Basic Attention Token and Ox.
For example, at the moment you can earn the following cryptos for free:
- Orchid: users can earn up to $52 OXT by completing a free course meant to teach you the basics of this privacy-focused coin;
- Tezos: completing a course on Tezos and learning about its openness, safety or upgradability will earn you $6 XTZ;
- Dai: a similar course-based offer is available for Dai as well, thus granting course participants $20 DAI;
- EOS: you can earn up to $50 EOS by completing a course on this coin, and learning more about its goal of facilitating the development of blockchain-based apps;
- Stellar Lumens: the completion of a quick course on how Stellar connects payment systems, banks and individuals will earn you $50 XLM;
- Zcash: this coin is known for its privacy-focused philosophy – course completion will grant you an undisclosed amount of ZEC tokens;
- Basic Attention Token: $8-worth of BAT can be earned by reading on BAT’s vision of fixing the web;
- 0x: last but not least, educating yourself on OX’s token-based idea of the future web will award you several ZRX tokens.
Do keep in mind that there is a catch to these courses. You must be the holder of a Coinbase exchange account, where all tokens will be credited.
Signup for Coinbase Earn
Earning Free Crypto via Airdrops
Airdrops are one of the simplest and most effective methods of earning extra cryptocurrency, especially in the form of newly-announced tokens. The idea behind airdrops is quite simple – innovative and newly-launched projects choose to hold airdrops as an effective marketing strategy, meant to pique the interest of the cryptocurrency community.
Participating in an airdrop is bound to be quite simple. It entails owning an active Ethereum wallet that is ERC-20 compatible, an email address, Telegram account, and in some cases, a Twitter account.
Once these criteria are met, you will have to look for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), Security Token Offerings (STOs), and token-based start-ups that have announced an upcoming airdrop.
Most of these platforms will require you to sign-up, by entering your ERC-20 address and email. For marketing purposes, some airdrops may require you to follow them on Twitter, or join the Telegram chat group. This ensures that you’re kept in the loop and quickly become aware of news concerning the token.
Recently, KYC&AML regulations have made it mandatory for numerous airdrops to request identifying details. This is due to the money laundering potential associated with these events. Therefore, if you’re keen on protecting your online privacy, airdrops might not be the best choice for you.
Recently, numerous wallet providers such as Blockchain.com have started sponsoring airdrops.
In other words, you are announced whenever a partner start-up is holding an airdrop of their new tokens, and can earn the tokens directly in your wallet. Similarly, there are numerous websites which scour the web looking for new airdrop events. Following will help ensure that you will be one of the first people to know about upcoming airdrops.
Leveraging Bounties for Free Coin
Bounties are quite similar to airdrops, in the sense that they represent free coins given away by crypto project developers. There’s one key difference, however – bounties generally imply that you do some type of work in exchange for the coin.
With this in mind, here are the main types of bounties, alongside a quick description for each:
Bug bounties
Bug bounty campaigns are generally well-paid, yet they are only relevant to people who hold development skills. Programmers throughout the world actively attempt to crack the code of online platforms, while also testing for potential bugs.
As such, crypto and blockchain-based companies may hold bounty campaigns, where developers analyse platform functionality and report any bugs.
Over the last couple of years, there have been numerous instances in which white-hat hackers discovered vulnerabilities or significant bugs in web platforms. In return for this service, and based on the severity of the vulnerability discovered, companies can offer tens of thousands of dollars as compensation.
Signature campaigns
This marketing strategy is often implemented on forums such as Bitcointalk. In exchange for a monthly bounty, forum users add a specific signature, thus indirectly promoting the products and services of a crypto company.
Most businesses holding signature campaigns require forum users to have a higher membership level, which can be obtained through frequent high-quality posts. In return for buying the signature space, companies offer a monthly bounty in tokens.
Translations
Crypto start-ups are always interested in having their content translated into multiple languages. Since many start-ups run on a limited budget, a good method to go about this is to launch a translation bounty. Here, native users translate specific portions of text, in exchange for a number of tokens.
Social media, images, blog posts and video bounties
Last but not least, we also have other promotional bounties. Some companies may ask you to write and post a positive article on their services, whereas others may require you to edit videos, share posts on social media, or create promotional images.
Based on these aspects, bounties do, in fact, represent a method of earning free tokens, yet they imply actual work. Luckily, the work is generally quite easy (apart from bug bounties), and can be completed rather quickly.
The Earning Potential of Affiliate Marketing and Referrals
At this point in time, most experts define affiliate marketing as the process associated with promoting products and services of various companies, in exchange for a commission on each sale.
A recent research study concluded that US-based affiliate spending may reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.
As such, affiliate marketing represents a significant revenue stream for numerous companies, especially those which operate in the online ecosystem.
Therefore, it only makes sense that numerous crypto and blockchain-related businesses have launched their very own affiliate marketing campaigns. Getting involved is bound to be simple – in most instances, you need an account, and a personalized link, which can be shared across the web.
Any service or product that is purchased using your affiliate link or referral code will be credited with a percentage of the sale.
Affiliate marketing can earn you free cryptocurrency as long as you are active online. This implies sharing the link as part of valuable content on a variety of platforms, such as crypto discussion forums, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or your personal blog.
The possibilities are endless. Your success depends directly on the size of your audience and your overall online reach. However, this means that actual work needs to be carried out in order to get this free crypto. On the other hand, once your links are live, affiliate marketing becomes a lucrative source of passive income, which can be leveraged for a prolonged period of time.
To put things into perspective, here are several crypto-related affiliate campaigns:
- Coinbase: if new users sign up using your personalized affiliate link, you are eligible to obtain 50% of the fees charged by the exchange platform for all transactions;
- TREZOR: this platform offers 10% of net sales carried out by users who have signed up using your referral;
- Ledger: this affiliate program promises to credit 12% – 15% of all sales;
- LocalBitcoins: you can expect to earn 20% of the trading fee associated with each transaction that is carried out by referred users;
- Binance: this exchange platform offers 20%-40% commissions on transaction fees.
Do keep in mind the fact that these conditions may be modified unilaterally by the website. Therefore, it is always recommended that you carry out your due diligence, and carefully research the affiliate marketing conditions associated with each of the examples given above.
Additionally, note that this list isn’t exhaustive – in fact, there are hundreds of crypto-related affiliate opportunities on the market at this moment.
It certainly isn’t unusual for affiliate marketing to become a main income stream, especially if done right. People have reported earning hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly using affiliate marketing strategies.
Given the fact that we are referring to the digital currency market, your income potential is further increased by crypto price volatility.
However, this entails that you treat it as a fulltime job until enough of your links are published on the web.
Other Free Crypto Offers
A quick search will likely unveil numerous other free cryptocurrency sources. Here are a few examples that we consider relevant:
Crypto.com
This crypto debit card company has launched a cash-back system that allows users to earn tokens on each purchase you make. Values vary between 1% and 5%, yet users can also expect several offers on third-party platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, Expedia or Airbnb;
Celsius Network
This lending platform allows users to deposit cryptocurrency, and earn an interest as other users borrow it. It advertises itself as a safe method of earning passive income by using your existing coins;
Wirex
Yet another digital currency card company, Wirex advertises a 0.5% bitcoin-based cashback scheme on all purchases made via the card.
Cryptocurrency gambling
Cryptocurrency gambling can also act as a method for earning free coins, yet extra care should be practiced if you decide to wager your coins. Do keep in mind that most casinos offer crypto faucets, which give out an amount of free coin every time they are clicked on (they are programmed against abuse, however, and serve as a method of encouraging users to keep on playing).
If you do decide to try your luck at a casino, make sure that you choose a platform that relies on a provably-fair protocol. Otherwise, you may expose yourself to rigged games that are bound to steal your hard-earned crypto.
Keep an Eye Out for Scams
Over the last couple of years, the popularity of the cryptocurrency market has increased exponentially. The rise in public awareness was mostly fuelled by intense volatility, and record-breaking prices.
With this in mind, the market is still seen as a way to get rich quickly. While there is significant money-making potential in crypto, this perception has led to the appearance of numerous scams, meant to fraud people out of their money.
Whenever dealing in crypto, there are two aspects worth keeping in mind: if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Also, you should never risk more than you can afford to lose.
Cybersecurity practices dictate that it’s best to always carry out in-depth research on any platform or service that you decide to use. Similarly, you should never give out your personal details or private keys to third parties.
Protection against scams and other forms of fraudulent activity is basically non-existent, whereas transactions are irreversible, therefore due diligence is essential.
The Bottom Line
Based on everything that has been highlighted in this guide, most people are only a few clicks away from earning free cryptocurrency.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of offers that you can take advantage of, while most imply an insignificant amount of work. O
n the other hand, those who are serious about creating a crypto-based income stream will be happy to know that affiliate marketing and bug bounty hunting are highly-lucrative passive income streams.
