How To Earn Free Bitcoin
Bitcoin has been a great long-term investment over the last decade.
But what if you don't want to risk your hard-earn money to buy a volatile asset? What if you don't want to go through the still quite tedious process of buying Bitcoin on an exchange? Or what if you live in a region with strict capital controls and don't have access to any Bitcoin exchange in the first place?
Instead of buying Bitcoin, you may want to try the following ways to earn free Bitcoin.
Shop online to earn Bitcoin
Bitcoin cashback services like Lolli allow you get Bitcoin rewards when you shop online.
Lolli launched in September 2018 and now boasts over 900 retailers where users can earn Bitcoin back. Top supported retailers include Walmart (3.5% Bitcoin cashback), Adidas (1.5% Bitcoin cashback), Sephora (4.5% Bitcoin cashback), Priceline (3.5% Bitcoin cashback), Macy's (4.5% Bitcoin cashback) and many more. On some retailers like Harry's you can even earn up to 27%.
The process is simple. The first step is to download Lolli's browser extension. Then when you make a purchase on the website of a supported retailer like Walmart, Lolli will confirm your Bitcoin cashback. After the purchase return period is over, Lolli will send your earnings to your Lolli wallet. You can then choose to leave your Bitcoin in your Lolli wallet or to withdraw it to another wallet. You do not need to go through KYC to use Lolli.
lolli.com has about 100,000 visits per month. Users have earned ~$26 in rewards on average to date.
Earn Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by learning about them
Coinbase Earn is a simple and engaging way to earn cryptocurrencies. By taking 2- to 10-minute online courses learn about cryptocurrencies, users can earn up to $50 worth of cryptocurrencies for free. As Coinbase puts it,
the idea is for users to understand more about an asset’s utility and its underlying technology, while getting a bit of the asset to try out.
Currently, you can earn and learn about Dai, EOS, Stellar, Zcash, Basic Attention Token, 0x, and more to come. The caveat is that Coinbase will prompt you to create an account before starting a course.
Coinbase Earn's previous incarnation was earn.com, which was acquired by Coinbase in 2018 for $110M. earn.com was founded in 2013 and was originally called 21.co.
Open an Bitcoin interest rate account
If you already own some Bitcoin, you can open an interest account with BlockFi or Celsius, deposit your Bitcoin to your new account, and start earning some interest. You can think of this as a savings account, but for cryptocurrencies.
Due to heavy and uncertain regulations, these platforms require KYC and may not be open to certain regions in the world, notably countries currently under international sanctions and some states in the United States.
The rates can fluctuate a lot over time, much more so than the rates of that your bank or brokerage account offers.
Also keep in mind that by depositing funds in at a platform like BlockFi, you are essentially lending your money to BlockFi and are bearing some counterparty risk. The risk primarily stems from the fact that BlockFi in turn lends the funds to institutional borrowers. Their business model is similar to traditional banks, which borrows money from some people, lends it to other people at a higher rate, and earns the spread.
Mine Bitcoin
Bitcoin mining is a highly competitive economic activity, but generally speaking, it is a great option to acquire Bitcoin if you have access to cheap electricity.
Essentially, mining is a process in which electricity is converted to a cryptocurrency. As such, for many regions in the world where cryptocurrency exchanges are banned, nonexistent, or otherwise inaccessible, mining may be the only option to acquire Bitcoin. Some of these regions, such as Venezuela, also happen to be experiencing hyperinflation, which makes Bitcoin mining even more attractive as an inflation-resistant store of value.
There are a few ways to mine Bitcoin, each with their own tradeoffs:
The first way is to buy specialized mining equipments, called ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits). They give you full control, but they:
1) have a relatively high entry barrier, with each ASIC costing a couple of thousands of dollars each
2) are very noisy
3) require someone technically savvy to maintain
The second option is to use a cloud mining website like Honeyminer. You install a piece of software, which will harness the excess CPU and GPU power on your computer to mine cryptocurrencies. This option does not not have any of the downsides of using ASICs, but as you rely on a third party to manage your mining operations, in theory you earn a little less, and have to trust them for your money and the safety of your computer.
Yet another option is to buy someone else's computing power on a marketplace like NiceHash and to mine remotely. The tradeoffs are similar to the above.
Surf websites with a Bitcoin faucet
Faucet websites are websites that drip tiny amounts of Bitcoin. Typical faucet websites ask you to complete captchas and send you Bitcoin rewards in return. Some other faucet websites use your CPU to mine Bitcoin and send you a fraction of the mining rewards. The coins slowly accumulate in your account on the site until you hit the minimum withdrawal limit.
While your earnings potential on faucet websites is very small, they are a gateway for newbies into the Bitcoin world and help them wrap their heads around the concept of cryptocurrencies.
Earn Bitcoin by running a Lightning node
Lightning network is a peer-to-peer payment system built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, designed to enable Bitcoin payments at faster speeds and lower fees. It consists of a large number of nodes that help route Bitcoin transactions for users. Anyone can join and operate a Lightning node.
Running a Lightning node is not just a matter of investing in and operating a piece of hardware. It additionally requires that the operator locks up some amount of Bitcoin (which they can retrieve after they stop the node). In return for their work and their capital commitment, node operators can earn transaction fees in the form of Bitcoin. In general, the more Bitcoin the operator locks up, the more transactions they can process, and the fees they can earn.
One way to run a Lightning node and to earn Bitcoin is to buy a Casa node. It is a small piece of hardware with a user-friendly web interface to set up and to manage the node. No technical experience is required. However, they are fairly expensive: at $400.
Work at a company that pays in Bitcoin
Finally, the most professionally rewarding way to earn Bitcoin is to work at a company that pays in Bitcoin. Here is a list of known organizations that pay in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies:
Furthermore, cryptocurrencies are a great option for international contractors and freelancers to get paid, as traditional international payment systems can be slow and expensive.
After you have earned some Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, come back to Messari to learn more about the intricacies of each of them.