Affiliate marketing, in which you promote a product or service and earn commission on every new customer you refer, is one of the easiest ways to start earning money online. Of course that’s not to say that it is easy to make a lot of money, but it does have the advantage that anybody can do it.
Even if you don’t have a website you can promote these referral programs to earn some extra pocket money through social media, forums, or recommending a product to friends and family (be careful to only do this if its a product worth recommending though!). If you do have a website or app then affiliate programs can potentially earn you lot more revenue and profit than regular advertising – because you know your own audience best, so you know what products they may like and how to present those products to them in a way that is friendly, useful, and appealing to them. If you take the time to sift through the vast number of referral programs out there to find products or services which are genuinely good quality and have the potential to appeal to your audience, and then make sure that you research and test them before recommending them to others, then you can earn a good income whilst also providing people with valuable and useful information – a win-win situation.
There are actually hundreds of Bitcoin referral programs on the internet already. These are affiliate programs which either pay out in BTC, appeal primarily to users of digital currency, or (usually) both. In order to help you to find the best ones to promote I’ve picked out 20 of my own favourites, with some of the best products as well as the highest commissions.
Exchanges
LakeBTC – One of the oldest and most reliable Bitcoin exchanges LakeBTC has good liquidity and offers the most generous affiliate program as well, with 30% commissions on every trade made by your referrals. The exchange is based on China but has a strong global presence with lots of fiat trading pairs and bank deposit options for each country including SEPA transfers for Europe. It also has good liquidity and operates as a Ripple gateway.
Coinbase – As one of the most world’s most popular Bitcoin services, including a very nice and user-friendly wallet as well as an exchange, Coinbase is a safe bet to recommend to newbies, providing them with everything they need to get started with Bitcoin all in one place. The referral program only pays out if they purchase at least $100 worth of coins, but if they do you get a very generous $25 payout. You can link to any page on the site, but they do not provide any promotional creatives such as banners for you to use.
LocalBitcoins – Available in many different languages in many countries around the world, LocalBitcoins provides a peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling bitcoin for fiat through a wide range of payment systems. You can link to any page of the site, including foreign language versions, and you get a commission equal to 20% of the trading fee on every trade made by one of your referrals for one year after you register. They use a three month cookie, so if somebody visits their site through your link they will be classed as your referral if they register at any point over the next three months. They also offer a customizable banner ad to help you promote them.
Exmo – This online wallet and exchange offers trading between Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin and fiat currencies such as the United States dollar, Russian rubles, and the European euro. They do not have any creatives, but they do offer a very generous 25% commission on the trade fees incurred by anybody you refer to them.
Coinomat – Offers instant currency exchange between a wide range of digital currencies and fiat payment processors
Advertising Networks
BitMedia – This relatively new advertising network offers an excellent service with strong quality controls to satisfy their advertisers, and also has some excellent banners for you to use – you can see one in the right hand sidebar of this site right now! They pay up to 10%, which you can earn from both advertising accounts and publisher accounts created through your links.
BitClix – A more established ad network with loads of great advertisers and publishers already on-board, BitClix offers 20% lifetime commissions from every publishers who signs up through your link.
A-Ads – Anonymous Ads do exactly what the name suggests: its an advertising network which is completely anonymous to use for the publisher, the advertiser, and affiliates. They also help businesses to set up their own affiliate programs, which they then add to a directory which you can browse through.
Gambling
BetChain – An industry leading 110% deposit bonus for new customers and a wide range of fun online casino games, along with a strong follow-up email campaign to convert registered users into paying customers, makes this a great program to promote. They have hundreds of different banners in every possible size for you to use, and pay affiliates 25% of the house edge.
BetCoinPartners – With casino games, a sportsbook and pokers games too, BetCoin has something for every gambler. They also accept Litecoin as well as Bitcoin, have some good banners, and pay out from 20% up to an impressive 35% commission if you are a top tier referrer.
Trading & Investment
1Broker – This trading platform lets you use your BTC to trade CFDs for the top forex pairs, commodities, indices and stocks. They offer leveraged trading and fairly low spreads. They also have a small range of banners to help you promote their service, and offer 15% commission on the spreads paid by any trader who signs up under your account.
CryptoTrader – This unique services provides a platform for users to purchase and use trading bots for automated cryptocurrency trading. The referral program pays out 10% on the recurring payments for premium accounts and one-off payments to purchase new trading bots.
Games
Satoshi Quiz – This fun and addictive quiz game pits users against each other to answer correctly in the fastest time, and pays out digital cash prizes for the fastest three. They also have challenges and tournaments, and offer 10% referral commission. This is another one which is easy to promote, but will make only a very small profit per user that you refer.
Faucets & GPT Sites
MoonBitcoin – Not only is Moon Bitcoin usually the highest paying faucet site, they also offer an incredibly generous 50% commission level, and to top it off you also get 1% added to your bonus on your own claims for every single active referral you have, and they also have a loyalty bonus for daily visits which is great for turning your referrals into active visitors and building up those commissions over time.
CoinAd – A ‘paid to click’ site which has some of the highest paying offers for your referrals to take advantage of, and will pay you 10% of everything they earn.
BtcVic – Although this site cannot compete with the high value offers listed on CoinAd, they do have a much better percentage for affiliates – 50% on every click by your signups, and they also have some banner ads that you can use to promote their service, which seem to perform well in my experience.
Bitcoin Financial Services
BTCrow – Pays a generous 50% for any customers you send to their escrow service.
BTCPop – The main service provided by BTCPop is peer-to-peer lending, but they also provide a platform for selling cryptosecurities and sell coins for debit and credit card payments. They pay 0.5% commission on all repaid loans taken out by your referrals.
Technology
CryptoVPN – This high quality ‘virtual private network’ (VPN) service offers private, encrypted internet browsing to its customers, does not keep logs, and pays out $9.95 for every customer you send them
Bitronic Tech – Unlimited shared hosting from $1.99 plus premium VPS and low cost bare metal servers, with Ruby support and other advanced features. Offers you 1o% recurring commissions for every customer you send them – hosting can be tough to promote but with some customers still paying their monthly fee and earning you profits several years after you signed them up, it can add up to a good income over time.
More…
You can find more by joining one of the large affiliate networks, which bring together thousands of different merchants into a single interface. One network which includes a few digital currency related programs is ShareASale.