Updated: 24 May 2019 - Added Cryptocurrency ad networks

Updated: 11 June 2019 - Added creating your own cryptocurrency

Updated 02 June 2020 - Added earnsats, more social blockchain, leverage trading and interest earnings

If you're reading this you're probably looking for ways to earn extra cash, am I right? You've probably seen the click-bait ads on how 2 girls become bitcoin millionaires or how I earn 3000 dollars a day with Bitcoin and thought its time to do your research. We all want to earn that ever-elusive passive income. If we didn't then the promise of easy money you can live off of every Ponzi and get rich schemes pitches would never be successful. Cryptocurrency is a new concept for many and between all the FUD, FOMO, fake exchanges and investment schemes (yes there are plenty of cryptocurrency scams) you'll find legitimate ways to make money.

Don't know what some of these terms mean? I suggest checking out our post - How To Speak Crypto

Can you make money from cryptocurrency?

The short answer is yes, you can make money with crypto. What people don't tell you is that its a slow painful process just like any other industry and you have to really commit to it. Depending on the route you take it will cost you time, money and plenty of hard graft to get your passive income stream running. To help you get started I've put together a guide to over 20 ways you can earn cryptocurrency online. Please note that these methods are by no means full proof nor do they guarantee ROI. This is not a get rich quick post so if you're looking for easy ways to make money I doubt you'll find anything interesting on this list.

1. Buy and Hodl

Relatively speaking this is the "safest way" to earn crypto. All you need to do is buy an amount you feel comfortable with investing in a certain coin and just hold it for a year. If the coin is one of the more promising cryptocurrencies it will most likely to increase in value from the price you bought it in at. Be responsible and do your research, don’t simply buy a coin because someone shilled it to you. Have a look at information like the coins whitepaper, roadmap, follow them on social media, check out the circulating supply, market cap and daily volume on popular exchanges. I've personally bought 12 different coins and will be hodling them for the next year or more.

2. Blogging/vlogging, curating and commenting

Youtube has been here since 2004 and you can make good money from vlogging there if you have more 10,000 views on every video and the same applies to blogging . Google has dominated this space with their Adsense platform but crypto has presented us with an alternative in Steem coin. Steemcoin is the coin behind the Steemit blogging platform. Steemit has introduced a way for the small-time blogger to actually make a decent amount of money every day by just blogging as im doing with this article.

Steemit users can make money by blogging, commenting and curating content for fellow Steemit users. Once you've signed up for Steemit you will also have access to sister sites Dtube (A decentralised version of Youtube) and Busy.org (A decentralised version of Twitter) where you have the same opportunity to earn Steemcoins. This is a truly revolutionary way to look at social media which makes you think how profitable this could be in the near future if Steemit will become a mainstream medium.

Since the launch of Steemit we've seen social media on the blockchain start to expand with chains like HIVE and BLURT being forked from STEEM. While other sites like Minds, Uptrend, Trybe, Cent, Publish0x, Bitchute, BitTube and LBRY all rewarding content creators for their efforts in cryptocurrency.

Tip! If have your own WordPress website you may want to check out our post - How To Earn Cryptocurrency Using Your WordPress Site

3. Faucet farming

Probably the least amount of effort needed but it does take time and for you to be dedicated and constant in completing mundane tasks like captchas or clicking the claim button every hour. Faucets require no investment from you, they make money from serving you ads and allow you to claim back a portion of that for your efforts. There are plenty of sites on the web that lets you collect a micro amount of bitcoin every couple of minutes from a faucet and eventually accumulate enough to cash out and get a small of amount of bitcoin to your wallet. To find faucet sites hit up Google or check out these two which seem to be the most popular

4. Mining

Another popular way to make money online lately is mining at your home with your pc or a dedicated pc or even a mining rig. Mining has become a competitive field and your standard desktop PC or laptop simply won't cut it. You will need to spend some initial capital on a high-end pc and some additional GPU for it to be profitable and it will take you a couple of months to break even with your hardware investment because the earnings on mining can be very slow sometimes.

The good news is that even if you decided to stop mining you can still use the hardware for something else like gaming. The bad news is that the hardware it can get pretty technical and you may have to join mining pools to remain competitive. If you're interested in mining I suggest checking out the site whattomine.com

Mobile mining: A new project called Electroneum aim to allow users to earn passive income mining from their Smartphones. Browser mining: If you would like to get started with simple browser mining and mine some Bitcoin on your Google Chrome browser by using a tool like Cryptotab or DogeOil

5. Cloud mining

If you're not keen on turning one of the rooms in your house into a sauna then this method may be more up your alley. Cloud mine services offer users the ability to rent out mining equipment and have proven to be profitable without scamming and can yield a decent amount of earning which can be paid most of the time every day straight to your wallet.

These contracts don't come cheap and using this method will take you 4 months to break even with your investment and after that, you'll receive pure profit every day. The more you invest (the correct term here is: upgrade your hash power) the more you will earn so you'll need a quite high initial investment of for example 10000$ to get a payout of 20$ a day. Examples of trusted cloud mining services: genesismining.com, hashing24.com, hashflare.com and Nicehash.

6. Staking

There are two popular schools of thought when it comes to Cryptocurrencies, proof of work which is where mining comes in and proof of stake. Proof of stake allows hodlers of a certain coin to earn interest for supporting the network. You will need to invest by purchasing a certain amount of a certain currency, creating a wallet and node and then finally sending your currency to the newly created node which can be used to verify transactions on the blockchain. As new blocks are added users will be rewarded depending on how large their stake in the currency is. Popular currencies you can stake are Lisk, Ark, Neo, Qtum, OMG, Cardano and Stratis.

7. Airdrops

When a new currency is introduced or a new batch of currency is released in order to gain momentum and interest many companies try Airdrops. An Airdrop is when the cryptocurrency development team distributes their coin to the community for free or in exchange for small tasks like downloading their software, native wallet or signing up for an ICO. If you want to know when airdrops are happening you can sign up for sites like Earn.com as well as Aidropalert.com.

8. Bounties

Bounties are similar to airdrops in that companies look to offer incentives in order to increase the popularity of their coin. Companies will provide users with marketing tasks like sharing on Facebook or Twitter, blogging or vlogging and rewarding those who do with cryptocurrency. If you want to know when bounties are happening you can sign up for bounitesalert.com

9. Gaming

I doubt this one needs an explanation, all need to do is play games on your Smartphone and get rewarded with cryptocurrency. Stormplay is a popular option.

10. Network support

There are a few promising projects in this space looking to create a decentralised marketplace for resources. Projects like Golem, Sia, Presearch and Storaj which allow you to rent out hard drive space or CPU power and get paid in their network-based currency.

11. Microtasks

Microtask websites allow users to get paid in cryptocurrency for completing tasks. A short task is any job or assignment that can be completed in a short amount of time. The tasks can vary widely in nature, from writing, editing, taking surveys, transcription, watching a video, clicking ads, online research and more. You won't make a fortune from this but it is a nice introduction to the technology. It provides you with a low-risk way to play around with setting up the wallet, sending currency, interacting with the blockchain and familiarising yourself with cryptocurrency. Some popular microtask websites include:

If you're a runner and fitness fanatic you may want to check out Sweatcoin. You can earn cryptocurrency for the number of steps you take every day.

12. Futures contracts

If you want to trade on Bitcoin but you don't have a strong stomach for the volatility you may want to look at Bitcoin futures. Futures are an agreement to buy or sell an asset on a specific future date at a specific price. Once the futures contract has been entered, both parties have to buy and sell at the agreed-upon price, irrespective of what the actual market price is at the contract execution date. The goal is not necessarily to profit maximization but more a risk management tool, often used in financial markets to hedge against the risk of changing prices of assets that are bought and sold on a regular basis.

Bitcoin futures (BTC) are currently live as of January this year and can be taken out every month with hedge funds and banks like CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange), CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) and Morgan Stanley. Currently, futures contracts are only traded on Bitcoin as the underlying asset but futures on Ethernet and other cryptocurrencies are in the pipeline.

13. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is nothing new, plenty of bloggers, social media influencers and vloggers make use of these platforms. You can sign up for affiliate programs with popular exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Luno or Kucoin and spam your link across various digital channels, as well as projects, link Dent giving away 185 tokens per sign up. You will get paid for every user that signs up and makes a purchase.

14. Selling goods and services

If you're an eCommerce site be it retail or SAAS all you need to do is set up a wallet with the cryptocurrency you would like to accept, say for example Bitcoin and then set up your payment options with your payment provider. You can use providers like Payfast, Paypal, Bitpay and more. Also, inquire with your current payment provider to find out if and when they will allow cryptocurrency payments.

15. Freelancing

If you're a digital freelancer you should be familiar with the concept. Freelance websites have been running for some time now acting as a marketplace for people to find skilful individuals to complete tasks for them. This can range from coding, digital marketing, content writing, image design, graphic design and more Popular sites include:

16. Investment programs

These investment programs resemble cloud mining but have some key differences:

After a certain amount of set days, you'll get your initial deposit back.

The actual earnings come from trading with crypto-currencies done by professional traders or trading bot software.

Every day you'll get a certain percent of your initial deposit usually between 0.30% to 1.5% and after a preset amount of days you'll get your initial deposit back, so you'll have your initial deposit back + all the daily earnings at the end of the investment period which can then be reinvested back into a new investment period. It is important to note that many companies in this space have been accused of being Ponzi schemes so do your research before you jump in.

If you're interested in checking out custodial interest-earning services then check out our review on earning interest on crypto.

17. Day Trading

If you've spoken to an avid crypto trader you'll quickly pick up the genius behind their strategy. It's Buy low sell high! Sell high buy low! This is the most popular way to earn in crypto and can be very profitable but its also a quick way to lose your money too. You really need to be a pro here to succeed but the good news is, you can learn it alone pretty quick, I'd say in 6 months you will start to get the gist. Get ready to take some loss but you'll almost never lose it all. Most popular sites to trade: Binance , Kucoin , Bittrex, Bitfinex and HitBTC

Note: Before we move on, I feel compelled to mention that whatever you do PLEASE don't sign up for anyone's Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency master course. If they were making enough money from Crypto they wouldn't be selling you how to guides for 500 dollars.

18. High-Yield- Investment Programs

These Programs try to disguise themselves as trusted investment programs but they are really a Ponzi/pyramid schemes. The way they work is to lure the investors to invest a large amount of money and to get in return a huge chunk of it everyday like 4 % until you’ve reached 160% or 7 % every 6 hours until you double your initial amount. Still, there is money to be made here if you get in early and have no ethical conundrums with making money from new investors.

19. Invest in an ICO

These are essentially new cryptocurrencies trying to enter the market before they can be exchanged on the popular exchanges. Usually, they introduce coins with special new features that can be helpful to the community in some way. These ICO's will usually offer you a discounted price and additional free coins for getting in early and taking the risk. It's your job to do the research and decide which one is good to be invested in. Most Ico's has a countdown of a certain amount of days. Use this site to monitor all the current ICO today and their countdown.

Investing in an ICO can be risky because you can't really know for sure if they are scamming or legit only good research and experience will reveal that. You will have to wait and see if they make it to a public exchange and once that happens there's some good news. If this is a shitcoin or a promising one, most of the time the first days of the coin life on the exchanges can bring you a large amount of profit if you dumped it in its initial interest phase.

20. Gambling

Whether its bitcoin dice, poker, texas-hold'em, roulette, they are all highly risky but the good news is that bitcoin gambling has introduced the provably-fair system which allows you to verify that every bet you made has not been manipulated in any way. This doesn’t mean that you can't lose your money, in fact, its quite the opposite. You can lose it all very fast in a matter of seconds if you don’t play it smart.

It's also important to remember that the house-edge which cuts a portion of every bet you make and it is to make sure the casino will almost always stay in profit. The more you play the more you lose so the key is to know when to stop.

21. Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking involves executing a unique javascript within a visitors browser. When a user visits your website that javascript activates on page load and uses your website visitors CPU power to mine cryptocurrency for you while they're on your site. For more on Crytpojacking check out our post - What Is Cryptojacking? Is it the future of monetization.

22. Donations

One thing the cryptocurrency community is renowned for is their generosity. We believe in the concept and we put our money where our mouths are. We not only shill our coins but we share them. Dogecoin is evidence of this. Simply set up a wallet and provide your address so that users can donate as a thank you. If you found this post helpful and would like to donate feel free to use the following addresses:

Donating Bitcoin - 1KNgt3PtcXKRcCf59RY6pPeDa7CRi5av13

Donating Bitcoin Cash - 1M9FYBvwuFNV9DJ8BbGV1m4WMmEMiBDXuv

Donating Ethereum- 0x6e22095fbb755833a36831701ef43e73a518fbf1

Donating Litecoin - LeijZSYwXp6MKie983guPswmWRzpA2LqRE

Donating Dash - XuxUe1tu72xDuiqennd5mGYyWDBAkvG3sY

Donating Dogecoin - DGXEMYg8VkVBJo9dqMsEqYjXEqaYhuroiJ

23. Advertising Networks

While this option may not be for everyone it does help those who already have a reasonable online presence. If you have your own website and you're sending traffic to it regularly by blogging or creating all types of content you may be sitting on a way to earn extra cryptocurrency through selling ad space. You can sign up for various cryptocurrency Ad Networks, place the code on your site and these networks like CoinZilla will pay you in cryptocurrency for every 1000 impressions or clicks off your website.

24. Creating your own cryptocurrency or token

If you're looking to raise funds for your business or augment your current system use with a tokenomics layer via a utility token you could earn considerable investment and or uptake in the use of your services by creating your own cryptocurrency. If you're are a skilled developer or have the resources you could take the open-source code for your favourite cryptocurrency and use it as a base for your own blockchain or leverage existing platforms like EOS, STEEM, HIVE, Ethereum, Tron, Stellar Lumens or NEO to create your own utility token on their chain or on a side chain.

25. Leverage trading

Get your head in the game

Leveraged trading allows you to use funds from an exchange and increase the position size on a particular trade so if you're on the right side of the deal, you'll earn a more substantial profit than if you only use your funds. Leveraged trading is a high-risk trading option used by professional traders who are happy to risk capital on margin calls. You can use sites like Bitmex and Binance to run leverage trading, but this is suited to experienced traders.

There you have it, 25 ways you can earn cryptocurrency that won't make you a millionaire overnight. So give it a go and let me know how it worked out for you.

New income streams

If there are any new ways to earn an income with cryptocurrency drop me a mention or a link in the comments section I'd be happy to check it out. If it checks out I'll add it to the list. If you enjoyed this post you may also find this one interesting - How To Passively Earn Cryptocurrency

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.

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