The past two years have marked an increase in overall public awareness of cryptocurrencies around the world. In return, more people expressed their interest in buying or earning digital currencies.
While buying your favorite coin via an exchange is probably the easiest way to enter the cryptocurrency market, this industry is full of surprises, so a substantial amount of coins can be earned for free.
Therefore, this article will cover the main methods that can be leveraged to get free cryptocurrencies.
Keep in mind that most of these methods require a bit of effort, since nothing is ever really free. However, these methods do not involve the need to work full-time, nor do they imply any monetary investment on your part.
Table of Contents:
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 buying and selling cryptocurrencies, 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 cryptocurrencies for free:
- Orchid: Users can earn up to $52 OXT by completing a free course intended to teach you the basics of this privacy-focused coin;
- Tezos: Completing a course on Tezos and learning about its openness, security, or upgradability will earn you $6 XTZ;
- Come on: A similar course-based offer is also available for Dai, 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: Completing a short 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: completing the course will guarantee you an undisclosed amount of ZEC tokens;
- Basic attention tokens: $8 of BAT can be earned by reading BAT’s vision of repairing the web;
- 0x: Last but not least, educating yourself about the token-based idea of OX of the future web will award you several ZRX tokens.
Keep in mind that there is a problem with these courses. You must be the holder of a Coinbase exchange account, where all tokens will be credited.
Earn Free Crypto through Airdrops
Airdrops are one of the easiest 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 keep airdrops as an effective marketing strategy, intended to arouse the interest of the cryptocurrency community.
Participating in an airdrop is bound to be quite simple. It involves owning an active ERC-20 compatible Ethereum wallet, an email address, a Telegram account, and, in some cases, a Twitter account.
Once you meet these criteria, you’ll need to look for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), Security Token Offerings (STO), and token-based start-ups that have announced an upcoming airdrop.
Most of these platforms will require registration, 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 are kept up to date and quickly become aware of the news related to the token.
Recently, KYC & AML regulations have made it mandatory for numerous airdrops to require identification details. This is due to the money laundering potential associated with these events. Therefore, if you are interested in protecting your privacy online, airdrops may not be the best choice for you.
Recently, numerous portfolio providers such as Blockchain.com have started sponsoring airdrop.
In other words, you are announced whenever a start-up partner holds an airdrop of its new tokens and can earn the tokens directly in your wallet. Similarly, there are numerous websites that scour the web for new airdrop events. Following will help you ensure that you will be one of the first people to know about the next airdrops.
Take advantage of Bounties for free coins
The rewards are quite similar to airdrops, in the sense that they represent free coins given away by developers of crypto projects. There is one key difference, however: sizes generally imply that you do some kind of work in exchange for the coin.
With this in mind, here are the main types of sizes, along with a quick description for each:
Bug bounties
Bug bounty campaigns are generally well paid, but they are only relevant to people who hold development skills. Programmers around the world actively attempt to crack the code of online platforms, also testing potential bugs.
Therefore, cryptocurrency and blockchain-based companies can hold bounty campaigns, where developers analyze the platform’s functionality and report any bugs.
Over the past couple of years, there have been numerous cases where white-hat hackers have discovered significant vulnerabilities or bugs in web platforms. In exchange for this service, and depending 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 like Bitcointalk. In exchange for a monthly bounty, forum users add a specific signature, thereby indirectly promoting the products and services of a crypto company.
Most companies that hold signature campaigns require forum users to have a higher level of membership, which can be achieved through frequent high-quality posts. In exchange for purchasing 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 have a limited budget, a good method to do this is to launch a translation reward. Here, native users translate specific portions of text, in exchange for a number of tokens.
Social media, images, blog posts and bounties videos
Last but not least, we also have other promotional sizes. Some companies may ask you to write and post a positive article about their services, while others may require you to edit videos, share social media posts, or create promotional images.
Based on these aspects, bounties represent, in fact, a method to earn free tokens, but they imply actual work. Fortunately, the work is generally quite easy (apart from bug sizes) 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 from various companies, in exchange for a commission on each sale.
A recent research study concluded that U.S.-based affiliate spending could reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.
As such, affiliate marketing represents a significant revenue stream for numerous businesses, especially those operating in the online ecosystem.
Therefore, it makes sense that numerous crypto and blockchain-related companies have launched their own affiliate marketing campaigns. Getting involved is definitely simple: in most cases, you need an account and a custom link, which can be shared on the web.
Any service or product 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 involves 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 directly depends on the size of your audience and your overall online reach. However, this means that you need to do some actual work to get this free encryption. On the other hand, once your links are active, affiliate marketing becomes a profitable source of passive income, which can be leveraged over an extended period of time.
To put things in perspective, here are several affiliate campaigns related to cryptocurrencies:
- Coinbase: If new users sign up using your custom affiliate link, you are entitled to get 50% of the fees charged by the exchange platform for all transactions;
- TREZOR: This platform offers 10% of the net sales made by users who have registered 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 commission associated with each transaction made by the reported users;
- Binance: This exchange platform offers 20%-40% fees on transaction fees.
Please note that these conditions can be changed unilaterally by the website. Therefore, it is always recommended to perform due diligence and carefully research the affiliate marketing conditions associated with each of the above examples.
Also, keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive: in fact, there are hundreds of crypto-related affiliate opportunities on the market right now.
It’s certainly not unusual for affiliate marketing to become a primary income stream, especially if done right. People have reported earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a month using affiliate marketing strategies.
Since we refer to the digital currency market, your income potential is further increased by the volatility of cryptocurrency prices.
However, this means that you treat it as a full-time job until enough of your links are posted on the web.
Other Free Crypto Offers
A quick search will likely reveal numerous other free cryptocurrency sources. Here are some 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 every purchase made. Values range between 1% and 5%, but users can also expect different offers on third-party platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, Expedia or Airbnb;
Celsius Network
This lending platform allows users to deposit cryptocurrency and earn interest while other users borrow it. It advertises itself as a safe method of earning passive income using existing coins;
Wirex
Yet another digital currency card company, Wirex advertises a bitcoin-based cashback scheme of 0.5% on all purchases made through the card.
Cryptocurrency gambling
Cryptocurrency gambling can also serve as a method of earning free coins, but you need to practice special care if you decide to bet coins. Keep in mind that most casinos offer crypto taps, which issue an amount of free coin each time they are clicked (they are programmed against abuse, however, and serve as a method of encouraging users to keep playing).
If you decide to try your luck at a casino, be sure to choose a platform that is based on a demonstrably fair protocol. Otherwise, you could expose yourself to rigged games that are bound to steal your hard-earned crypto.
Keep an eye out for scams
Over the past couple of years, the popularity of the cryptocurrency market has increased exponentially. The rise in public awareness has mostly been fueled by intense volatility and record prices.
With this in mind, the market is still seen as a way to get rich quickly. While there is significant earning potential in crypto, this perception has led to the appearance of numerous scams, intended to scam people with their money.
Whenever it comes to cryptocurrencies, there are two aspects worth keeping in mind: if an offer seems 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 is best to always do extensive research on any platform or service you decide to use. Likewise, you should never provide your personal data or private keys to third parties.
Protection against scams and other forms of fraudulent activity is essentially non-existent, while transactions are irreversible, so due diligence is essential.
The conclusion
Based on everything that has been highlighted in this guide, most people are just a few clicks away from earning free cryptocurrency.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of offers you can take advantage of, while most involve an insignificant amount of work.
On the other hand, those who are serious about creating a cryptocurrency-based income stream will be happy to know that affiliate marketing and bug bounty hunting are highly profitable passive income streams.
