10 ways to earn crypto without investment: A beginner's guide

Earning crypto without direct investment seems to be the best option for beginners. You can offer a service, participate in various events related to crypto projects, create content, and do other exciting things to earn your first crypto assets. Here are ten ways to get started.

Airdrops and giveaways 

New projects often distribute their tokens to spread awareness about their project. So if you have some free time, good intuition, and patience, you can earn good rewards here. If you participated in the biggest airdrops like dYdX, LooksRare, Uniswap, and Arbitrum, you could earn tens of thousands of dollars! The tasks are usually not difficult. The most important thing is to explore the industry on a regular basis to avoid missing out on real gems. 

Bug bounties 

Many projects offer generous rewards for finding bugs and vulnerabilities in their projects. So if you're a tester or technical person, this is definitely your way to earn your first crypto. To save time, it is highly recommended to register on bug bounty platforms like Immunefi or HackenProof, which aggregate all incoming bug bounty events. For example, Immunefi has already paid out more than $95 million in bounties. Fun fact: The largest bug bounty reward ever paid is $2 million in ETH for the discovery of a critical vulnerability in the Polygon network. 

P2E (Play-to-Earn) 

Play-to-earn games are an evergreen trend that continues to evolve each year. Top hits such as Axie Infinity, Decentraland, Gods Unchained, Galaxy Fight Club, and The Sandbox are well-known even outside the crypto world. Many games host regular tournaments where you can earn tokens, other assets, and game attributes (which can then be sold on specialized gaming platforms). Axie Infinity rewards its players with the SLP, a special token awarded for completing quests and winning local games. 

"Tap-to-Earn" crypto mining

Nowadays the biggest trend is games that allow you to perform simple actions and earn crypto. The most successful game among the tap games is NOTCOIN on the TON blockchain that has engaged 35M active users in just a few months by simple rules and understandable mechanics. A user had to simply earn the game currency “notcoins” by clicking on the screen.

Content creation 

You can use your writing skills to get paid in crypto on platforms like Publish0x and Steemit. They pay users for publishing articles and engaging with the community. The amount of assets you receive is usually proportional to the level of engagement (number of views, comments, etc.). Publish0x also rewards users for simply reading articles. 

Freelance services

Your skills can lead you to your first income in the crypto world. Platforms such as EthLance.com, Cryptotask.org, XBTFreelancer.com, EthLance.com and many others offer payments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Choose the asset you'd like to receive and explore the platform before signing up. For example, XBTFreelancer.com is a 100% bitcoin site, while Cryptotask pays in a variety of coins, including bitcoin, tezos, ETH stables (USDT, USDC, DAI), BSC stables (USDT, USDC, DAI), Polygon stables (USDT, USDC, DAI) and other crypto. 

Free NFTs

Of course, NFTs are not crypto, but you can quickly exchange them for crypto assets. Many startups offer their NFTs as a welcome bonus to their community. You can follow a new project on Discord and become one of the people who gets NFTs for driving good traffic to the channel. You can also mint NFTs afterwards or sell them on different marketplaces like OpenSea, Variable, Blur, etc. 

NFTs giveaways happen quite often, so it is important to monitor X and Discord for new events on a regular basis.

Affiliate marketing

Refer new users to the platform and get crypto bonuses! Some startups also offer their tokens to promote their brand. Big companies like Binance offer a 40% - 50% commission for all referrers 

Some platforms allow you to earn a percentage of the trading fees of users who sign up through your referral link. So it's a great way to earn passive crypto income. Especially when the interest you earn is tied to the actions your referred users take (e.g. trading volume or account funding level). 

Reward platforms

Participation in events on social platforms like Galxe and Zealy allow you to perform various tasks for different brands and startups and receive predefined rewards in the process.

For instance, each company describes their Zealy quests in detail: the complexity of tasks may vary according to the type of quests you take part in (legendary, unique, daily etc.) Usually each campaign starts with ordinary tasks like subscribe on Discord channel or retweet a post. And you can already earn rewards by performing such tasks. 

Ambassador programs & engagement in communities 

Lots of projects tend to engage with influential individuals  to promote their project’s goals and values. As a crypto ambassador, you can not only earn crypto for promoting certain projects but also help yourself with enlarging your own community.

One of the biggest campaigns of this kind is the Polkadot Ambassador Program that includes contributing code and documentation related to the ecosystem, speaking about Polkadot at events, workshops, and meetups, writing blog posts and many more. There are several ambassador levels, and the Head Ambassador will receive a $10,000 monthly salary.

Engagement in communities also brings great dividends. Many well-known companies use Discord to distribute roles in the community and increase engagement. The role level varies according to the complexity of the fulfilled tasks. For instance, you can be responsible for banning users for inappropriate behavior and be rewarded with points that will be equal to Discord XP. 

Earning crypto without initial investment opens up numerous opportunities to get involved in the space while building your portfolio. By staying active, engaging with communities, and exploring different avenues, you can gradually accumulate assets while learning valuable skills. Dive in, stay consistent, and watch your crypto journey grow without risking upfront capital.