It’s been a while since I wrote a new post, and it feels good to be back! 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
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.
There are currently three main websites that deal with Bitcoin lending – BTCJam, Bitbond and Loanbase.
Update: I no longer thing this is a safe way to earn Bitcoins. You’re more likely to lose your money than to get it back. Here’s some stuff I’ve learned along the way.
Bitcoin Investment sites (avoid at all costs!)
There are hundreds of sites around the web that claims they can multiply your Bitcoin, give you super high daily interest on your coins or do all sorts of other “magical” stuff if you just send them your coins. These sites are known as HYIPs (High Yield Investment Programs) and from my personal experience they are 100% scam.
Every day I get at least one or two emails from people who have been conned by these sites. What the site generally does is pay members using new member deposits that come in. This continues until one day the site decides to completely disappear from the web with the majority of their investors money.
I can’t emphasis enough how dangerous these sites are – AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!! They are not a way to earn Bitcoins, they are a way to lose Bitcoins. If you’re not sure if a site is legit or not, I suggest using the Bitcoin scam test