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Updated 21st November 2021
With the bitcoin halving recently completed, there couldn't be a better time to learn how to earn free crypto, so we've updated our guide to include the latest tips and suggestions to help you earn cryptocurrency for free.
Here is a summary of the best ways to earn free cryptocurrency in 2021, with full detail in the article below:
- Coinbase Earn - Watch videos, answer questions & earn free bitcoins
- Microtasking - Earn crypto in return for doing small tasks on platforms like StormX
- Passive Interest & Cashback - Get interest on your coins or crypto cashback on purchases
- Bitcoin Trading - Earn free bitcoins by trading cryptocurrencies
- Gambling Affiliate - Becoming a Cloudbet affiliate can create a great crypto income
- Airdrops & Faucets - Sign up for these airdrops or faucet sites.
- Bounties & Forums - Earn crypto from post & participating in bounty campaigns
- Bitcoin Mining - Find out how to earn an income from bitcoin mining
Euro 2020 and Summer Olympics may have both been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but an even more important event that only happens every four years did go ahead in May.
It's called the bitcoin halving and it is anticipated to have a huge potential impact on the price of BTC so now more than ever is a crucial time to start earning some free bitcoins. This article will explain how.
We won't get heavily into why the halving is significant, but the key thing to understand is that the number of bitcoins that get added to the existing supply every 10 minutes as a reward for miners validating transactions halved from 12.5 to 6.25 in May (find out more on the halving from this article). The ratio of new supply to existing supply is called Stock-to-flow and a lot of crypto analysts see increasing Stock-to-flow going hand-in-hand with increasing Store of Value - in other hands going up in price.
If stock-to-flow and the halving have whet your appetite to build your own stack then work your way through our in-depth guide of the best ways to earn crypto in 2020.
1. Coinbase Earn - Watch videos, answer questions & earn free bitcoins
Coinbase's mission is to create an open financial system, where anyone can participate on equal terms, which they aim to achieve by providing the means to buy, sell and exchange popular cryptocurrencies. They realise that crypto can appear complex, so in order to make it easier to understand, and provide incentives for people to learn they have partnered with some of the most prominent blockchain projects to create Coinbase Earn.
What is Coinbase Earn?
Coinbase Earn is a simple way for verified Coinbase users to earn free crypto from popular blockchain projects by watching short and simple explanatory videos and then answer a multiple choice question. Get the question right and you receive crypto straight to your Coinbase account. Read about it here in their own words.
The emphasis is on education so there is no penalty for getting the question wrong. You can watch the videos as many times as you want, and try a different answer if you initially get it wrong.
- Read a separate article on the How & Why of Coinbase Earn
What free crypto is on offer as of May 2020
As of May, 2020 Coinbase Earn is offering $158 worth of the following cryptocurrencies just for watching 2 minute long educational videos and then answering very simple questions. But please be aware that headline figure includes the potential earnings from referring other users to sign up with Coinbase Earn. For each referral you get $10 up to the maximum amount stated.
In order to earn the free crypto on offer at Coinbase here's what you need to do:
- Create a Coinbase account - you must be over 18yrs
- Complete ID verification - details here
- Go to the Coinbase Earn section & start a course
Please be aware that Coinbase does apply certain country restrictions, and that you may be put on a waiting list to start a course on a particular coin. If that happens just wait for the invite to earn these coins (the invite can be immediate or take a bit more time depending on the country).
Once you answer the questions the coins are added immediately to your wallet, so you can hold or exchange for other coins like Bitcoin, and potentially send to one of the interest-earning services listed below.
Sign up for the latest Coinbase Earn offer
2. Micro tasking - Earn crypto in return for doing small tasks
The internet has transformed jobs in ways that no grandparent of ours could have fathomed. We can trade virtual currency, work from anywhere, and even make money from renting our WiFi bandwidth. One of the more peculiar and overlooked developments has been the concept of microtasking. These are basically small grunt jobs that machines can’t do yet, offered and accepted all over the internet, as and when they’re needed.
If you want to get your foot on the first rung of crypto ladder micro tasking is a great place to start. As its name suggests you earn crypto in return for performing small tasks. Some may simply be designed to educate you regarding a particular new cryptocurrency or service and incentivise you to spread the word. Others maybe slightly more demanding and involve you completing a variety of small, relatively mundane tasks in return for a bit of crypto - think back to the chores you did as a child in return for pocket-money and you'll get the picture.
2a. Stormx
StormX is a micro-tasking mobile app (Android/IOS) that rewards users for signing up for subscriptions (streaming, FinTech and other services), playing mobile games, answering surveys and trying out various apps. Around half of the offers do not require users to spend anything besides a negligible amount of time. For example watching ads every 30 min will award you 500 bolts per video while trying out mobile games/apps can get you a reward of 200K to 2M bolts.
The app rewards users in “bolts” which can be exchanged for BTC and ETH (exclusively with a Coinbase wallet) or even for STORM (StormX´s currency, currently listed on exchanges like Binance).
2b. Buzzin
Contrary to StormX, Buzzin offers rewards exclusively on tasks related to new cryptocurrencies and services. There is a wide range of tasks including visiting websites, watching one of their videos, follow/comment on social media or even going through KYC of a particular exchange to vote on a token listing.
Buzzin tasks are rewarded in points that can be exchanged for ETH or the native token of various developing blockchain projects.
2c. Kucoin Play
Kucoin Play is a micro tasking platform purely focused on social tasks to promote the various tokens being traded at the exchange. Users get points for every task they perform, all the way from logging onto social platforms and sharing content, to creating videos or writing articles about the sponsored coin of the campaign. They can also earn points by playing skill based mini-games on the platform, as well as entering a points lottery.
Kucoin Play points are used to rank users on a leaderboard, so they can get rewarded accordingly: users have to be on the top 470 to earn part of the latest Energi campaign rewards while they have to be on the top 10 to earn coins from the skill based games.
2d. Insight Network & Instar Wallet
Insights Network is a blockchain-based survey and market research tool that allows its users to get rewarded for answering short surveys. When joining, you need to create an account at Instar Wallet to receive rewards. Unlike third party surveys, the initial surveys are mostly focused on crypto subjects such as the Coinbase outage or Facebook’s Libra, which makes much more sense given its user base.
The only information required to register and the only information shared through this polls and surveys are the user’s year of birth, gender and country, for which the user will get rewarded with INSTAR, their ERC-20 token, currently trading around $0.015514.
3. Earn Free Crypto: Passive Interest & Cashback on purchases
Coin staking, in Proof-of-Stake blockchains, is the process by which active cryptocurrency holders participate in the decision making of new changes to be implemented in the network. Holders that become active participants in the consensus process are rewarded with a sort of passive interest in the same cryptocurrency (as is the case with Stellar XLM) or through another currency (as is the case with NEO and GAS).
Crypto lending providers loan crypto or fiat to institutional clients and consumers for various purposes. In the case of consumer loans, there are no credit checks nor inquiries on the use of the amount lent; instead, the borrowers of these services need to collateralise their loans with crypto assets - put up some crypto against which to borrow.
There is always the risk of borrowers not paying back their loans; this is why they are required to collateralise their loans with 50% to 80% of the value in crypto assets. If the price of the asset were to drop below a determinate price level, they get the option of increasing the collateral with another deposit or simply paying off the loan.
On the flip-side to loans is passive interest which you can earn on your crypto portfolio, as alternative to the more risky opportunities with trading. You can get a good idea of the platforms currently offering interest and their respective rates by going to Coinmarketcap's new section dedicated to it, but here is a summary of some of the bigger names in this growing market.
3a. Crypto.com
Crypto.com are on a mission to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency and so they are aggressive with customer incentives. A good way to start earning free crypto is via their Pre-Paid Visa Card cash-back scheme. Crypto.com have created their own coin called MCO, which can earn in the form of cash-back on your regular purchases.
Crypto.com cards are debit cards linked to the app wallet that grant 1% to 5% cashback (paid in MCO) on all spending, free international withdrawals, 100% cashback on Spotify & Netflix subscriptions, and even 10% cashback on Airbnb and Expedia, depending on the card ordered.
The cards are currently available in the US, Singapore Europe; Asia Pacific and Canada are next on their roadmap. Follow the latest announcements on their blog.
You can upgrade your Crypto earn interest up to 8% p.a. on BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, BNB, LINK, BAT, MKR, up to 12% p.a. on PAX, TUSD, USDC, DAI, USDT and up to 18% p.a on CRO & MCO.
3b. Celsius Network
The Celsius Network is focused on providing financial freedom through Crypto banking. For anyone looking to build their stack Celsius is a great way to earn interest on existing coins as well as getting a nice little sweetener for opening an account and referring other users.
Free Crypto Offer
Claim a Sign Up Bonus worth $10 worth of BTC on deposits over $1,000 worth of crypto; an additional $10 of BTC awarded for keeping the deposited amount for over 3 months.
You'll then earn interest on your coins of up to 10% - which is ten times better than your bank will be give you on your FIAT savings. You can also earn CEL tokens, the native currency of the platform, which now generate 3% interest p.a.
The interest is calculated daily, paid every Monday and available for withdrawal at any point in time. The interest is paid on the same currency deposited or in CEL which will earn you and additional 10% on the earnings or up to 30% on the base interest earned by having 10% of your portfolio in CEL.
3c. Binance
Binance, one of the leading crypto-to-crypto exchanges recently opened a biweekly (14 days) lending program where you can earn 7% p.a. on ETC, 10% p.a. on USDT and 15% p.a. interest on BNB. The offer is quite limited compared to other crypto lending providers in terms of coins and the availability of these interest plans: the plans are available for users on a first come, first serve basis, which leaves the large majority of its users with no chance of participating.
Binance also offers coin staking which generates a monthly paid, annual interest of 1% to 3% for XLM, KMD, ALGO, or native tokens of the same blockchain in the case of NEO/GAS, ONT/ONG, VET/VTHO, TRX/BTT.
3c. Nexo
Nexo is another crypto lending provider that offers BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, NEXO and LTC collateralised loans. Unlike its competitors, the platform pays interest to lenders of EUR, USD, GBP and USD-pegged stable coins, while the other cryptocurrencies can only be used as collateral. Nexo’s compounded annual interest on stable coins is currently at 8% while they also offer interest on crypto assets
3d. KuCoin
KuCoin also provides staking services for ATOM, EOS, TRX, IOST, NEBL, ONION, NRG, NULS and TOMO with an estimate annual ROI between 0.5%-22%, distributed every 5th day of the month.
*Staking coins on Binance and KuCoin doesn’t involve any lockup. Users will be able to trade or withdraw their coins freely but they should be aware that the rewards are calculated daily and an empty balance will impact the monthly staking reward.
3e. BlockFi
BlockFi is a crypto lending and borrowing platform backed by renowned partners such as Coinbase Ventures, Galaxy Digital, CMT Digital and Consensys. The collateralised loans, with a Loan to Value of 50% (borrow 3000 USD, deposit 6000 USD worth of BTC or ETH) generates a very generous 8.6% annual compounded interest, paid on a monthly basis.
Users can choose to earn interest in different currencies. Any interest account of BTC, ETH or GUSD can yield interest in one of these 3 coins. Example: Deposit BTC and Earn interest in USD or ETH.
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2. How to deposit bitcoin into your account
3. How to start betting with bitcoin
3f. Wirex
Wirex offers a fiat debit card that provides cashback on purchases, but not quite like credit cards. For 1 Euro/month (or 1 Pound/month for UK customers), Wirex provides a debit card with a 0.5% cryptoback (cash back in BTC) without any hidden fees. Plus, you can buy and freely transfer the top cryptocurrencies directly using your fiat account through the Wirex app.
3g. Crypterium
Crypterium is considered one of the “Emerging 50 Rising Stars” in Fintech by KPMG and H2 Ventures. The crypto bank offers collateralised loans, instant crypto purchases and mobile wallets to send cryptocurrencies to users who haven't registered yet using their phone number, email or wallet.
Crypterium has the first truly global crypto card, so users can cash out and pay anywhere they go. The card itself is provided in partnership with UnionPay, in the Philippines, which isn’t part of the Common Reporting Standards; meaning they are not required to share users data with foreign financial entities.
What Free Crypto is on offer?
Their loyalty reward program will distribute 30% of the revenue from crypto-fiat transaction fees, in CRPT, the native ERC-20 token of the platform.
Depending on the amount of CRPT held in the mobile wallet, users will be assigned to the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum echelons, which will have a claim of 5%, 10%, 35% and 50% of the monthly rewards respectively.
4. Earn Free Bitcoins: OTC bitcoin trading
Buying a selling bitcoin is a great way to increase its adoption, strengthen the network and make a profit with every transaction you make. Whether for privacy concerns or obstacles to access major exchanges, there is always demand for bitcoin on the OTC market (Over-the-counter or Off-exchanges) all around the world.
Anybody can become a trader on the OTC market to buy/sell bitcoin with a margin over the market price. All it takes is a few hundred dollars of capital and opening an account in a platform that ensures the safety of the transaction:
4a. Localbitcoins
Localbitcoins is probably the most famous site that puts buyers and sellers in contact for peer-to-peer online trades. Users can navigate through the site to find the most competitive listings and exchange bitcoin for fiat without having worry as funds are held in escrow by Localbitcoins.
The platform, which was initially known for facilitating peer-to-peer trades in person, has suspended this service and now focuses only on facilitating peer-to-peer online transactions, for which it takes a 1% commission of the total amount traded.
5. Earn Free Crypto: Become a Cloudbet Affiliate
Whether you are very active on Telegram, Reddit & Bitcointalk, manage your own blog, buy & sell Bitcoin OTC or simply have a big group of friends; there are plenty of affiliate programs for you to benefit from and earn some crypto. The real money in affiliate programs is made on commission based referrals without expiration dates in which case Cloudbet offers a great program.
5a. Cloudbet’s Affiliate program: 30% Revenue for Life
Anyone can sign up on Cloudbet’s affiliate site and earn an uncapped 30% of the revenue from referred players, for the entire lifetime of the referred account. All you have to do is sign up with your email (No KYC required), refer a minimum of 5 new players that make a deposit, sit back and enjoy your well deserved BTC earnings.
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6. Earn Free Crypto: Crypto Gambling
This is self-explanatory and exciting. How about getting paid to play video games? Granted, you won't be able to quit your day job anytime soon, but at least it's fun, right?
6a. Cloudbet
A great way to earn and grow your crypto stash is by gambling. Cloudbet offers both a Casino and Sportsbook with unmatched options that cater for all players.
A big win can forever change a life. A single spin on a slot or at the roulette table, or that one card being drawn at just the right moment can lead to a new house, quality time with the family or even early retirement.
We have had our fair share of casino winners who weren’t necessarily high rollers. At our bitcoin slots, a lucky player walked away after a 216 BTC winning streak, with 216 BTC in a single spin!
In every round, on Cloudbet’s Lightning Roulette, one number is randomly struck by lightning, and that number’s payouts receive a multiplier that ranges from 50x to 500x. One electrifying event led an extremely lucky player to get his wagger multiplied by almost 500x, getting an incredible 49.22 BTC from a single spin of the roulette.
6b. Vibe or Die
Vibe or Die is a multiplayer FPS shooter game that allows players to wager and get rewarded for every kill they make.
To start, new users will need a Metamask account to fund their account and withdraw the tokens they earn. Here is a short Medium tutorial on how to set up your account.
Players can select the following tokens and the stakes to wager on from the game menu:
VIBE stakes: 0.1 ~ 10 ~ 100 ~ 10,000 per kill/death
BNB stakes: 0.01 ~ 0.1 ~ 1 ~ 10 per kill/death
ETH stakes: 0.01 ~ 0.1 ~ 0.5 ~ 1 per kill/death
The game itself is pretty straightforward: there are no character classes nor weapons to pick up in different parts of the arena. Instead, all players fight with the same type of weapon and grenades with infinite ammunition and health that regenerate overtime.
Like most blockchain based games, all the transactions and kills/deaths during Vibe or Die gameplay are available to users through the VIBENet private chain explorer.
6c. Pooltogether
Pooltogether is a blockchain powered lottery in which it is impossible to lose. Players lock their DAI tokens through a smart contract into a pool that generates interest for 7 days. When the time is up, every player gets his deposit back and one lucky winner gets all the interest the pool generated. The lottery pool opens every 7 days , and requires a minimum of 1 DAI (equivalent to 1 USD) to enter.
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7. Airdrops & Faucets
Faucets are perhaps the earliest way of earning free crypto. The logic is simple: you perform an action repeatedly, and faucets "drip" coins in proportion for the time spent doing the task. The action at hand is usually viewing or interacting with ads, which are behind the whole concept.
Follow this link to a separate article if you are interested in digging deeper into what is a bitcoin faucet is, how they work and why do exist?
An Airdrop is a process by which the developers of a token-based project distribute their own currency for free, sometimes under certain conditions. The coins or tokens are delivered to wallet holders that have a determinate balance or that have registered their interest on the project
In some cases, getting rewarded with the coin or token of a particular project will require a bit more work than just providing your public wallet address. Some of the projects will require users to do basic social tasks like following, liking and commenting on the project on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook or even Linkedin. The most complicated airdrops we have seen over the past year required passing a full KYC procedure, downloading their native wallet, writing articles or even making a video on one’s thoughts about the project.
While it may seem counterintuitive at first, Airdrops have been an effective method to raise awareness and interest of a project; which is the whole point of a pre-ICO campaign.
7a. Cointiply
Cointiply is one of the slickest faucets we have seen so far. The site rewards users with coins which are tied to the US dollar (100 coins = $0.01 = 0.000002 BTC).
Users can claim between 15 and 840 coins every hour by rolling the dice and testing their luck. Once users have more than 10 coins, they can choose to gamble on the Multiplier game for the chance to increase their bags. Additionally, Contiply users get rewarded for completing surveys, viewing a large selection of ads and playing free mini games.
The platform also offers 5% annual interest for users that have a balance of over 35,000 coins and have opted in. Users can also deposit BTC in order to reach the minimum amount required for earning interest.
Unlike many other faucet sites, they do offer direct withdrawals from 100,000 coins or 35,000 through third-party sites.
7b. CoinDreams
CoinDreams is an Android & IOS mobile app that centralises upcoming airdrops, giveaways, bounty campaigns and contests, to earn altcoins and in some cases, Top 10 coins.
There are plenty of sites which offer the same airdrop-alert type of service, but what makes Coindreams stand out is it’s convenience. The app will link with your favourite social networks and quickly redirect you to different sites to perform the social tasks required.
The current list of estimated rewards per campaign ranges from $1 to $5000. Although some rewards are pretty high, users should keep in mind that the valuation of these tokens is often completely disconnected from reality.
Additionally users should consider creating new social media accounts to protect their privacy and avoid any link between their wallet addresses and their real identity.
7c. Blockchain.com Airdrops
Blockchain.com are one of the biggest names in crypto, with over 49 million wallets in use. If you download a wallet and go through their KYC process you can participate in Airdrops - they have given away more than $125 million in cryptocurrency such as their $25 XLM Airdrop and more recently with Blockstack.
When coupled with Coinbase's offer, that makes an incredible free $75 in XLM.
7d. Airdrops.io
There is an abundance of ICO listing sites, newsletters and telegram channels to learn about the latest token Airdrop. Cloudbet’s pick is Airdrops.io as it has one of the largest lists of airdrops, categorised by channel for the tasks.
The platform has an exclusive list of airdrops available to registered users and a Holders airdrop section, where top cryptocurrency holders can learn about the airdrops they are eligible for.
8. Bounties & Forums
With the rise of both Bitcoin and blockchain over the past decade, everyone and their mother has turned to the internet to satisfy their curiosity. Google searches confirm this trend has increased since 2017.
People are still wary of misinformation, especially when it’s to do with their finances, so to fight crypto’s detractors and schills, the smart enthusiast turns to a forum or bounty network.
Many of these forums’ content has thus become pretty valuable and where there’s value, there’s money to be made. So that’s exactly what the more entrepreneurial enthusiasts have been doing, creating their own micro-economies in the process. Cloudbet blog has a whole separate article dedicated to earning free crypto from forums.
8a. Gitcoin and Bounties Network
For those with a more technical background, Gitcoin offers some pretty decent crypto pay for development work, with some design gigs popping up as well, although not as often as crushing bugs on code.
For more of the non-technical stuff, the Bounties Network offer a wide range of high-value rewards for finding bugs and contributing to developing blockchain projects also on the marketing, design, content and opinion sides. Currently the tasks go from a few cents worth of altcoins up to a whooping $1,000 in DAI. The more complex the issue, the bigger the reward.
8b. Purse.io
Purse.io is the frictionless link between Amazon gift card owners “Earners” looking to cash out on their gift cards, and BTC & BCH holders “shoppers” looking to buy on Amazon at a discounted price.
Shoppers are able to upload their Amazon wishlist, browse through a selection of items and select from a 5% discount for the optimal delivery time or over 15% if they are not in a rush.
Meanwhile, earners can browse through a list of shoppers requests that include the country, total basket price, discount requested and the amount of bitcoin to be rewarded. Once Earners make the purchase, the basket gets delivered to Purse.io and they handle the additional delivery from their warehouse to the Shopper.
8c. Coil
Coil is a paid content platform that rewards content creators for the time subscribers spend watching and / or reading their content. Its key difference compared to other platforms is that the rewards are transferred instantly as opposed as every week or month.
Anybody can become a content creator on the platform without having to pay any fees or subscriptions. Simply sign up and start creating.
8d. Cryptojoblist
Cryptojobslist features the latest physical and remote blockchain related jobs from marketing and community management to business and blockchain development. Some of the positions are paid purely through tokens.
9. Bitcoin Mining
No ultimate guide to earning free crypto would be complete without mentioning bitcoin mining, given it is so fundamental to the functioning of the network. However, bitcoin mining is complex and not something to be taken on without technical know-how and research.
In fact it is such a big subject we have created a separate in-depth guide to bitcoin mining: you'll learn what it is, why it is critical and how it has evolved in the decade since Bitcoin launched in 2009.
That said, there is a way to earn crypto from bitcoin mining without the complexity - bitcoin mining pools. Mining pools are essentially passive ways to earn an income from mining without doing the actual number-crunching. You buy into a pool that acts an investment in a mining operation. Read this separate article if you are interested in joining a bitcoin mining pool.
Grow Your Stack at Cloudbet
The Cloudbet blog is focused on sharing ways to grow your stack. The free crypto opportunities in this article are a great way to accumulate, albeit requiring your time and attention in return. Once you get a foot on the first rung, you can really boost your portfolio by moving from accumulation to speculation, and depositing your coins at Cloudbet. You an even use a credit or debit card to get started:
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