11 Ways to Earn Free Crypto

The crypto industry has countless ways to earn free crypto. From NFT airdrops to learn and earn programs to play-to-earn games, this post will be covering the common and not so common ideas that are available. If you have time to invest but not much capital, here are the various ways you can grow your crypto portfolio for free.

Word of caution, look out for suspicious websites and scams. While we tried to vet these websites, this is the crypto industry so always do your own research.

Overview

Here's a quick list of some of the websites mentioned in this post:

1. Airdrops

A cryptocurrency airdrop is when a project distributes free coins to your wallet. New blockchain projects do this a lot because it’s a great way to gain attention and start building a community.

To take part in airdrops, you will need to have a cryptocurrency wallet and complete some simple tasks. The requirements may be as simple as following their Twitter page, while others may be more complex, such as investing in the token or using the protocol.

The majority of airdrops don't pay much. However, if you do it frequently, it can be worthwhile, especially if you get a token that blows up. In 2020, Uniswap airdropped $350 million to 250,000 accounts that have used the exchange. At the time it was worth about $1,400 and would have peaked at $17,000 for those who held on. The country of El Salvador also did an airdrop to encourage Bitcoin adoption. They offered $30 worth of Bitcoin to any citizen who downloaded the Chivo wallet.

You can track crypto airdrops on these sites:

2. NFT Airdrops

NFT airdrops are the same concept as regular airdrops. Projects will give you free NFTs to gain awareness, increase utility, or reward their holders.

One day, I opened my Opensea account and saw this was put in my wallet:

I got airdropped a free NFT for doing nothing at all other than owning a certain project. I got to sell it for 1.31 ETH:

You can get free NFT airdrops by:

3. Learn & Earn Programs

Learn & Earn crypto programs refer to the idea of getting paid to learn about new tokens. Most often, you will watch 1-3 minute videos or read short articles and then take a quiz. If you pass the quiz (which is usually easy), you'll earn some crypto. The reward ranges between $1 and $10, but I've seen as high as $50.

Coinbase has the most popular Learn to Earn program which has paid out over $100 million since its launch. While there aren’t many Learn and Earn offers out there, you can join them all to start making the most money. Here are some popular programs:

4. Microtasks

A microtask pays you small rewards for completing easy or repetitive tasks like making a tweet, tagging photos, or opening an app every day. On the upside, you can complete microtasks in a few seconds. On the downside, it's hard to make significant money.

Companies fund microtasks for a variety of reasons. It can be to increase app engagement, get work done, or reward users for holding their tokens. While you definitely won't get rich doing this, here are some examples that work right now. You can collect all of these daily in under 10 seconds each:

5. Crypto Faucets

Similar to microtasks, Crypto faucets reward users with crypto for completing tasks. According to Binance Academy, crypto faucets pay you a small amount of crypto rewards for easy tasks such as watching ads, taking quizzes, reading articles, or solving captchas. 

The first crypto faucet was a Bitcoin faucet built in 2010 that awarded users 5 BTC each for solving a captcha. The faucet distributed nearly 20,000 BTC in the initial stages. The rewards these days are much smaller. 

You can find Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana faucets and many more depending on what token you want to earn. It takes no skill to get started all you need is to invest your time. Just make sure to use reputable websites because scams and fraud are common. As a side note, make sure you're not using testnet faucets from tools like the Rinkeby Ethereum testnet that give out fake ETH. These faucets use worthless tokens for testing purposes. 

Here are some popular crypto faucets on the web:

6. Cash Back Cards

One of the best and easiest ways to earn free Bitcoin or crypto every day is to get cash back on your fiat purchases. There is a growing number of crypto reward cards that pay 1%-3% cash back on every purchase you make.

The cards available right now are all Prepaid Visas, which are more like debit reward cards than credit cards. There are no credit checks and no impact on your credit score, so anyone over 18 can get one. Depending on the card, you can earn 1%-3% cash back in BTC, CRO, and other tokens.

47% of Americans have used credit cards to earn rewards but most don't realize that you can earn Bitcoin or crypto as cash back. If you want to ditch loyalty points or fiat cash back, here are the top crypto reward cards to check out:

7. Cash Back Apps

Like crypto reward cards, cash back apps also let you earn free crypto in-store or online. You might know Honey or Rakuten, two popular fiat cash back apps. Lolli and StormX are the cryptocurrency equivalent. Just install the browser extension or download the app to earn crypto from your favorite stores like Walmart, Nike, eBay, and thousands more. Plus, you can combine it with crypto reward cards to double your earnings.

8. Play-to-Earn Games

Play-to-Earn games (P2E), are a new trend in the blockchain industry. They also go under the name "Metaverse Games" or "GameFi". These games are essentially the same as regular video games, except they include Web 3.0 elements like decentralized wallets, coins, and NFTs. 

The key is to accumulate in-game assets in the form of NFTs (weapons, armor, digital land, etc) and sell them to other players. These assets are deposited in your crypto wallet and can then be sold on the game platform or on 3rd-party marketplaces like OpenSea. The game might also reward the player in governance tokens such as MANA for Decentraland. 

Most games are free, but games with actual earning potential will require some form of initial investment to upgrade your character, whether that's an NFT or a number of coins.

There are 800+ P2E games according to DappRadar. Some of the most popular titles are Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and Splinterlands. Another rising competitor is Illuvium which is the first AAA-tier game on Ethereum. We also wrote a piece on Gameta, a rising free-to-play project on Binance Chain. You can discover free and paid play-to-earn games with these research tools:

9. Claim Sign Up Bonuses

Claiming bonuses is one of the most straightforward ways to earn free crypto. Nearly every crypto exchange offers a free cash bonus and it takes 10-20 minutes to sign up and claim. These bonuses can be higher for futures trading. 

Typically, you have to deposit or trade a certain amount (which you can trade out of immediately) to get $25, $50, sometimes $60 for free or more. Most exchanges will also require you to pass a KYC (know-your-customer) check to verify that you're really human. They usually deposit fiat into your account which you can keep or trade it for the token of your choice.

10. Enter Giveaways

Giveaways happen daily in the crypto industry. The hard part is finding them and entering ones that are reliable. While giveaways do not guarantee you’ll win, you can enter as many as you want (multiple per day), including small projects that have less entries.

Monitoring large crypto exchanges like Binance, Bybit, KuCoin, and more is one way to find reliable giveaways because they regularly have contests and prizes to reward their users. The task might be to pass a tutorial, deposit crypto, or trade futures. If a user does this, they enter a prize pool and stand a chance at winning.

Another method is to follow hundreds of company accounts on Twitter, since they usually host promotions for their audience. You can also do an advanced Twitter search for crypto giveaways every day.

As with airdrops, giveaways, and everything in crypto, there are many scams so be careful and do your research before participating in anything. Here are ways to find daily or weekly giveaways:

11. Staking

Staking is one of the easiest ways to earn passive income for coins that you already hold. The APY varies between 3-10% per year on large cap coins. Many top coins offer staking rewards including ETH, BNB, SOL, ADA, DOT, and many others.

What is staking? By staking crypto, you help secure the network by validating transactions automatically. For a period of one month, six months, or three years, you lock a coin on the network instead of mining it. The higher your stake, the greater your reward. The network will give you free tokens in exchange for your stake. The coins are automatically deposited in your account once your stake ends, and you can choose to extend your stake.

The rules are different for every network. Certain coins let you unstake whenever you want, while others have a minimum staking requirement of 6 months (with penalties for unstaking early). The interest rates are wide as well, DOT offers 12% APY whereas ADA offers 3-4%.

Note: Staking directly on a crypto wallet is not the same as staking on an exchange. An exchange might lend out your crypto, while a stake on a blockchain wallet will be used for security on the network. 

Research the wallets for the specific crypto you’re interested in to find more information about staking. For example, Cardano’s official wallet, “Daedalus,” will allow you to stake and secure the Cardano network automatically.

Staking Resources

Start Earning

While you can't expect to make much from free crypto opportunities, it is possible to get lucky, especially in the crypto world. You can also combine these opportunities together and watch it slowly add up over time. Most importantly though, make sure to do your own research and stay safe while exploring these ideas.

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