Since I have been working in the cryptocurrency for over 3 years, I am used to getting the same question thrown at me week upon week to anyone who isn't clued up on the cryptocurrency world -
"Should I invest my money into cryptocurrencies?"
My reply confuses a few people as I firstly state that you shouldn't invest into anything that you do not understand, whether that is stocks, bonds, or property. Investing means giving your hard earned cash to another entity in the hopes that their system, product or business takes off and you are handsomely rewarded for having faith in them.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in cryptocurrencies and the technology behind it, but I would never advise anyone to throw their life savings into something they haven't the faintest concept of. Instead, I advise them to earn some cryptocurrencies while learning about the ecosystem. One of the amazing aspects about this industry is the ability to earn cryptocurrency in a numerous ways.
Therefore I will be creating a 5 part series on the ways anybody can start earning cryptocurrencies without spending any money or learning how to mine. I truly believe that one of the ways to help mass adoption is it allow the general public into the crypto world without them getting burned in shady ICOs or Ponzi schemes, as new adopters can fall prey to shoddy businesses in any walk of life.
So without further ado, let's get started!
Writing for Your crypto - The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
One of the ways that I earn crypto is through my writing, I enjoy this mostly because it is about a topic that interest me, I have to research and teach myself and I like to engage people or show them / teach them something that they didn't know. Although most people do not earn from writing articles, there are some platforms in the crypto world where you can, also on top of this if you grow a large enough following and have thousands of people viewing your content, some crypto projects will look at you as a potential writer towards their project (think of it almost as a designer's portfolio).
I think this is a great place to start your crypto journey as not only can you be creative and earn in your spare time, but also most of these platforms have a vibrant community who are also wanting to learn, meaning that you can interact with people who are in the same situation as you. The platforms I have picked below I have done so because I personally use them, I have earned from them and I recommend them. I will be listing their global website rank (so you can get an idea of how popular the websites are), their user base stats and how you can earn off them.
Note stats like user amount and alexa ranking are taken at the time of writing this article, and will change over time, also I left out Steemit as you are reading this post on the platform, so you already know about it.
Uptrennd
Created - January 2019
Amount of Users - Over 72,000
Alexa Ranking (Global Website ranking - Google is #1, Youtube #2) - #34,790
How you earn on the platform - When you have created content / comments when someone upvotes your comments / content (It's free to upvote so good content can get a lot of upvotes), referrals and competitions on the platform.
Summary
I originally joined this platform over 9 months ago, but stopped using it a months after signing up joined because I found it a little buggy. After coming back at the end of 2019, I wished I had stayed with the platform, because it has vastly improved. The simplest way to describe Uptrennd is it has a similar look / model to reddit, as you post links, articles and images and comment but instead of earning karma, you earn 1UP, which is listed on 3 exchanges the biggest one P2PB2B.
In on the platform you can upvote as many posts / comments as you want, you just have a 3 times per day / per account and you have the ability to make 3 posts every 24 hours.
I find that I get the most engagement on my posts on this platform in regards to upvotes and comments and with the number of users increasing month upon month (They increase their signups by 20% in the month of February, and I don't see it slowing down), I highly recommend this platform. If you are interested in checking out the platform / signing up you can click here, and sign up easily and quickly.
Publish0x
Created - October 2018
Amount of Users - Over 68,000
Alexa Ranking (Global Website ranking - Google is #1, Youtube #2) - #20,947
How you earn on the platform - When you have created content and when users upvote it (tip your content) You can also earn from tipping articles, referrals and article competitions.
Summary
Publish0x is a crypto blogging platform where you earn crypto from users tipping your created conent. On top of that, users can earn crypto for tipping as the user chooses the percentage amount they tip (i.e. the user decided to tip 60% to the article, the user keeps 40% of the tip). Users are able to tip 7 times a day and must tip at least 20% of the tip to the article. These tips are free and come from the tipping pool on the platform, so you do not have to spend anything to tip, nor does it come out of your earnings.
What is pretty cool about this platform is that they do not have their own cryptocurrency, but instead have multiple ones you can earn. Currently the highest valued crypto you can earn is BAT, but you also earn DAI and HYDRO (which are all listed on numerous exchanges and can easily be traded). This means that they can solely focus on the platform and do not have to think about the native token in regards to it's price and trading volume as well as the fact they can grow a community around already established cryptocurrencies. If they added let's say Stellar to the platform, it would bring the Stellar enthusiasts to the platform, vastly increasing the amount of users.
I have been using this platform since January 2019 (I was rather an early adopter) and i have seen it grow month upon month, I would highly recommend this platform if you like to write content or like to read crypto content. You can sign up here.
Closing thoughts
I think that this is the best way to start your crypto journey as it allows you to research and earn your crypto. On top of that you learn a valuable skill, the ability to write content that engages people.
And there you have it! That's the second part of my earning crypto series! In the coming months i will be adding more ways you can earn crypto without investing your capital or learning to mine. Are there any websites / dapps I missed out that you like to use? I know there are many others out there, but i haven't used them extensively, if i get some decent ideas I will try them and maybe add them to the article. Leave a comment below and let's start some dialogue!