It’s been a while since I wrote a new post, and it feels good to be
back again! Today, I’m going to cover all of the available ways there are to
to earn Bitcoins online. Before I begin, I just want to make something
very clear.
There is no easy way to make a substantial amount of Bitcoins
Just
like there’s no easy way to make a substantial amount of US dollars or
any other valuable currency for that matter. The good news is that if
you’re willing to put in the effort, you can achieve some very nice
earnings online. Later on in this post, I’ll expose some of my own
earnings so you can see what I mean.
Also, there’s no such thing
as “free bitcoins”. It will always cost you something to get Bitcoins.
It may not always be money, but something needs to be spent, whether
it’s time, your email address, viewing ads or anything else.
I
hope I didn’t burst your bubble too much right at the start of this
post, but if you’re still here with me, let’s dive into the different
ways you can earn Bitcoins today.
1 – Micro Earnings
This
is probably the easiest niche to get into, but it’s also the most time
consuming. Methods that belong to this niche usually take up a lot of
time and pay a fairly small (almost irrelevant) amount of Bitcoins. Even
if you have a lot of free time on your hands, this still won’t bring
you too much income. Also, some of the websites that pay out micro
earnings have built-in malware and viruses, so you need to stay safe and
not click any links you don’t trust.
PTC or Paid-to-Click websites ($0.4/hour on avg.)
As
the name suggests, these are websites that will give you small amounts
of Bitcoin for viewing ads and visiting websites. The most popular PTC
website today is
ads4BTC. The site will give you a choice between 5-second ads, 10-second ads and 20-second ads, as shown here:
As
you can see, even if we watch 20-second ads all day long for 24 hours,
we will be making 0.0216BTC. So basically, we’ll be making $9.612 for 24
hours of work.
Bitcoin Faucets ($0.054/hour on avg.)
Even though
running a Bitcoin faucet
can be profitable (more on this later on), using a faucet isn’t as
much. Faucets are websites that will give you a small quantity of
Bitcoins every few minutes. For example, Milli,
our own Bitcoin faucet gives up to 1000 Satoshis (0.00001BTC) every
five minutes. But even if you managed to hit the 1000 prize every time
for a full 24 hours, you’d still be making only 0.00288BTC. So you’d get
around $1.31 for 24 hours of work (and we have one of the
highest-paying faucets in the industry).
Micro jobs
There is always the possibility of completing micro tasks in order to get paid small amounts of Bitcoin.
Coinworker
is a good example of a micro jobs Bitcoin site. Jobs can be anything
from testing a web application on a browser to retweeting a post.
2 – Writing about Bitcoin
Writing
about Bitcoin requires time, knowledge and the ability to write in the
required language (usually English). Through writing, you can start
making a nice income depending on where you choose to write.
BitcoinTalk Signature Campaigns ($2.67/hour on avg.)
Somewhere
around mid-2014, BitcoinTalk started running signature campaigns. What
this means is that you use your BitcoinTalk’s signature to advertise a
Bitcoin product and get paid for every post you write. The complete list
of campaigns can be seen here.
Of course, this created a lot of “junk” posts on BitcoinTalk, like
people saying just “thank you” or “awesome post” and not adding any
actual content.
You get paid according to your membership level on
BitcoinTalk. Usually, anyone under a full member won’t get paid that
much or paid at all. To becoming a full member, you’ll need at least 120
posts under your belt, and then you can start earning 0.0005BTC on
average per post. There are also limitations on posts you can write such
as “original posts with 60 or more characters”, “You can’t have
negative trust or other advertisements”, etc. Sometimes, there’s also a
minimum post requirement per week.
Seeing as writing a
constructive post of at least 60 words takes a minimum of five minutes,
my guess is that if you work for 24 hours straight, you can make
0.144BTC. So you’ll be making $64.08 for 24 hours of work. This, of
course, does not include the number of posts you need to write in order
to get the required membership level on BitcoinTalk. Also, many
campaigns have a “maximum posts allowed per week” policy, so you may not
be able to work a full 24 hours.
Writing for blogs and news sites ($31.25/hour on avg.)
If
you think you have enough knowledge to contribute about Bitcoin, you
can always become a writer for a blog or a news site. Many sites need to
fill up a daily quota of posts, and they are desperately looking for
writers. We hire the occasional writer on 99Bitcoins as well, and I can
say that the salary of a blog post writer will vary significantly based
on your experience, control of the English language and expertise. If
you’re a top-notch writer, you can even make up to $80 per 1000-word
blog post.
On average, I’m guessing most writer get somewhere around $35 for a 1000-word blog post.
But
writing a good blog post takes time. For example, it took me about four
hours to write this 2400-word blog post. So let’s say, theoretically,
that I can work for 24 hours straight; I’ll be making around $750. If
you want to become a writer, the best way to find Bitcoin blogs that are
looking for writers is through Coinality, which aggregates all of the Bitcoin jobs being posted online.
3 – Supply Bitcoin-related services
This
category is a bit broad, as it includes every possible Bitcoin service
that you can think of that someone would pay for. The best ways to get
ideas for services you can provide is to visit either Coinality (which
I’ve mentioned previously) or the services thread on BitcoinTalk. Some examples for services people are looking for:
- Blockchain developer
- Website manager
- Graphic design expert
- Mining expert
- Online marketer, etc.
Becoming a Bitcoin escrow agent
One
example of a service you can provide is becoming a Bitcoin escrow agent
and getting paid for arbitration in Bitcoin transactions (more on that here).
Of course, this will mean you will need to gain some sort of reputation
for yourself as a trustworthy person in the community.
I can’t
really put a price estimate on this category, since every service is
different. This is something you will have to personally research
depending on the service you’d like to provide.
4 – Bitcoin lending / investing
If
you own some Bitcoins and want to increase their value, you can always
look into Bitcoin lending. The idea is pretty simple – you lend out a
certain amount of your coins to people for crypto-related projects
(usually) and get them back with an interest.
The good news is
that you can get very high returns through lending. The bad news is that
with high returns also comes high risk. Some of the people you will
lend to won’t return your money, or you might have to chase them in
order to make sure they pay. That’s why it’s important to choose your
lending projects wisely. Here’s my own personal experience with Bitcoin lending, and here’s how to choose a good lending project.