It has finally became apparent that cryptos are here to stay! The only question we should be asking ourselves now is: To which degree will our lives be impacted?
I am a strong believer that, indeed, we have passed a point of no return, a final threshold. But even if it is true that the whole thing is in a bubble and that the burst is imminent, the aftermath will birth a whole new world, a new cryptoeconomy that will shake the very foundations of our old ways. Too woo-woo? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But who knows, really?
As our society starts accepting and implementing all of this new technology in our everyday lives, a whole range of opportunities will start poping up. Some new, some old wrapped in a new mantle. Today, we will be exploring just one area of these opportunities. Namely, passive income. Reason being, that if we use our early movers advantage and be smart about it, we could potentially leverage it and set ourselves up for the long game.
Now, before we continue it is important to note, that if we take a step back and observe the ‘big picture’ of this technology adoption, and recognize that we are just about to enter Early adopters region represented here in a this graph, also known as Bell Curve.
Meaning, a whole bunch of new people are about to start flooding this space, and by getting involved now, all of us stand to potentially reap huge gains, simply by riding that wave. And this might build up your confidence, but I would advise staying grounded. We have to realize that all of these projects that we are investing in are just and only startups, to their core. Sure there might be the next Apple/Google/Tesla in there, but there is a lot more of simply bad projects with hyped up unrealistic goals or even Bernie Madoff(famous Ponzi schemer) type of schemes . And just like most startups, 9 out of 10 of them will never even see the light of day.
Even so, a lot of people will go all-in, blindly. Some will make generational wealth sure, but most will go belly up using this ‘strategy’. And thinking about it, these are some rather poor chances. The way to go about it is by taking all the advices with a bit of grain of salt! Know that all your favorite sources of education have at least a little bit of incentive to promote certain coins over others. Even if they might not be sponsored directly, they might have invested and would profit from price appreciation.
So always, always do your own research! And for a good rule of thumb, if you can’t explain it to a child and why it has a a great chance of succeeding, you bought in on the hype. Also, if you happen to lose, you have to be able to rethink your strategy, correct and ultimately make better choices. And you can not rethink that, for what you did not do the thinking in the first place!
Right, with that out of the way let’s explore one of the many ways we can use these growing opportunities and align ourselves to better our future.
1. Steemit
Even if you are completely broke, there are ways to earn your buy-in by simply utilizing what you have. The first thing you have to do is provide a value to people. One of those ways is Steemit platform. A true example of what this new technology can bring. Far from the reputation Bitcoin and Blockchain had in their early days. Anyhow, on this platform you are rewarded for helping out, providing value to others.
You can start writing blog posts, and if people find them useful, they will return the favor by upvoting(wink wink). This is the equivalent to a ‘like’ feature on other platforms. And the more people upvote, the more you earn. Also, one great thing is, that you don’t even have to write posts exclusively. Simply by commenting on other posts could get you the same results. It is all about the value sharing and community building. No adds, no affiliate links, no upselling.
Can you imagine if Facebook or Instagram had that feature from the start? I’d be a BTC millionaire by now :D
More on Steemit: YouTube
2. Cent
Cent as a platform is quite an interesting one, it’s a mix of Quora and Upwork.com. People there ask all sorts of questions and then post a bounty. Say 0.024ETH, and whoever gives the best answer earns the reward. It can be anywhere from answering the questions like: ‘Best ICO’s/projects right now?’, to designing a simple logo, sharing your favorite books or simply helping out in some small but meaningful way,.. You should definitely check it out!
Website: Cent
Note: I am sure I am missing a whole bunch of amazing projects but honestly, it is a full time job keeping up with all of them. So, if you happen to know of some, I’d deff love to hear all about them. Maybe even doing a bit of research and writing a post for you guys.
So let’s talk down in the comments bellow. We are all in this together and it would benefit us all in more ways than one, if crypto community as a whole grew stronger and larger! Anyhow, onwards and upwards!
Now that we have our buy-in here are some of the more popular ways of earning that sweet passive income!
1. Masternodes
If you are new in this, the way cryptocurrencies make everything nice, safe and going smoothly is by building a system, where you don’t have to trust me to do the right thing and I don’t have to trust you, but we can trust the system that is immutable and secure. We say this system is trustless.
Now every coin is different, but mostly we can categorize them into two categories(based on how they validate network):
1. Proof of Work(PoW) and
2. Proof of Stake(PoS)
Bitcoin for example is PoW. Now I won’t go into details about any of them, as this post is already a bit too big, but if interested you can learn more about those following this link: Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
And when developers do choose the PoS route, the people holding these coins do all the work of validating the network, as mentioned before. And they do it without the need for all that expensive hardware, as is the case for PoW. But to be honest, PoW has a security track record. It has simply been here longer and has proven itself time and time again. So, there are pros and cons to both sides!
The amazing thing about Masternodes though, is that by being PoS and by simply holding X amount of their coins, you get constantly rewarded. Although, this pleasure might be a bit on a pricey side, as usually you would have to have at least couple of thousand coins in order to build a Masternode(different coins - different amount). Ofcourse, this is not a rule, as there are plenty of coins that require merely couple of hundreds coins to run a mNode.
But the reason I mentioned them is that now, you have one more angle to consider while looking at an particular ICO. Important as this is the time frame where it is actually realistic of accumulating larger amount of coins. Especially if you get in on the pre-sale ;)
More on masternodes: Youtube
List of coins with masternodes: Masternode List
4. Staking
Now that we touched upon this concept of staking your coins in order to get a reward, let’s build upon that for a bit. No, you don’t have to have a boatload of coins in order to stake. There are plenty of coins that are allowing you to stake your coins with far far less! And here are just some of them:
NEO
NEO (yes just like the Matrix protagonist), has been dubbed the ‘Ethereum of China’. And for a good reason(check out the links bellow). If not for the China FUD(Fear Uncertainty Doubt ) couple of months back, who knows where would the price be right now.
But unlike Ethereum’s smart contract platform that is still PoW(transition is in works) NEO is PoS from the get-go . So just by simply holding your Neo coins, in their Neon wallet, you will get something called ‘GAS’. Now GAS is the thing that allows its users pay to run their smart contracts. More on NEO & GAS here.
At the moment of the writing, one unit of GAS is ~40$. Not bad, ey? :D
And the best part is that you can have as low as one coin to be able to stake.
Website: Neo
P.S Before you go ahead and invest, in any coin not just Neo, I would advise you to calculate your profitability and ROI(return on investment) and see if the numbers work for you. Make a plan and stick to it. Here is the Neo profitability calculator.
TenX
TenX token is in a sector that is ripe for a takeoff, IMHO. They aim to bridge the old system of fiat currencies with this new one. You can use their app and debit card to pay for stuff with your cryptos. So expecting that their adoption rate will go exponentially, they have decided to reward their holders with a percentage of the action. The correct numbers I believe are: 0.5% of the aggregate payment volume that is spent by all users with the TenX Card and 0.1% for transactions of the TenX card holder. But if this is too much math, this might be helpful for an rough estimation.
Website: TenX
OMG
With their slogan “Unbank the Banked”, OmiseGo or OMG is a Ethereum based ERC-20 token and a extension of an already successful Thailand-based, Asian-focused company called Omise. Omise specializes in e-payments and is looking to expand into cryptocurrencies. Their founding goal is to empower individuals that do not have bank accounts and/or trust in these institutions, to allow moving value from fiat to cryptocurrencies and back in a low-bar-of-entry and a decentralized manner.
Even though they are Ethereum based token they plan on transitioning to their own blockchain. And in it, DEX the decentralized exchange will be built into the this consensus layer of a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain. And so this validation process will be conducted through OMG holders that decide to stack their coins. Fees and rewards are still unknown at this moment but what we know is that there will be an upper limit to the number of validating nodes. Meaning that people with bigger stacks will have bigger chance of making the cut. But let’s not despair, as for us with smaller bags, they have said that they will be working on staking pools so that we might contribute as well! Overall I am very bullish on this project and I expect it to be a great long term hold.
More info: HackerNoon
Website: OmiseGo
5. Sharing unused computer space
Something I failed to mention when talking about having no money to start earning in the beginning of this post, is utilizing the existing resources, like your old computer. But it somehow felt more natural to place it after PoS section.
And so, here is another way of naturally cultivating your Satoshies($USD is no longer appropriate, right? :D). There are cryptos that try to displace world’s data-centers and servers that hold all of your data by completely decentralizing it and giving the keys only to you, the user.
One of these coins is Sia coin. They noticed that anyone can serve as a micro server(all of the components are already there, in our computers), utilized the blockchain and then they made the data heavily encrypted so no-one could steal it or make any sense of it . And so now, we are able to receive a regular payment just by renting our unused disk space.
More on Sia: TheMerkle
Website: Sia
Sia coin is not the first nor the only one in this space, just an example of the opportunities that this amazing technology provides. It doesn’t even have to be only files that you can host on your computer. It can be a whole internet. Yes, you heard me right.
Substratum is yet another great example. It started with a goal of bringing the Internet to the people in a heavily censured countries. But it stands to achieve a lot more than that. Just like with Sia, you earn Substratum coins by being a node. But the the key difference with SUB is that the longer you do that and the more coins you have, you show that you are a stable contributor and hence you earn greater rewards! Plus it is dirt cheap right now, less than 1$ or ~12000 Satoshies.
More on Substratum:
Website: Substratum
6. Invoice factoring
Populous(PPT) & PayPie(PPP)
These are the type of coins that are taking a bite of a current financial system. By some estimation the invoice factoring accounts for ~20% of banking business. If decentralized, people invested in it might be in a center of a major wealth transfer. But these are new waters, so tread carefully!
Let’s take for example Populous. PPT is a ERC-20 token(Ethereum). By buying and holding this token you have a option to sign up to Populous platform (Beta any day now). And there register either as an ‘Borrower’ aka Invoice Seller or as an ‘Investor’ aka Invoice Buyer. So assuming you are reliable business and you would like to expand, you could simply upload your invoice and sell it to the Marketplace, funds will then be processed and available to you within 24hours! All without the hustle and extreme fees that the banks offer. And if you are the ‘Investor’ aka Invoice Buyer, first of all you get the option of actually doing this! Then upon choosing one or more invoices among thousands of small to medium sized global enterprises, you place a bid and hopefully win. Then after the invoice has been settled, you get payed(average of 3-6% on invoice). After that, withdraw, reinvest, up to you. I will post some links here that explain this better than I ever could.
Also, almost forgot, in regards to PPT tokens, how does it work. Lets say you bought 10 of them. By default ,you receive ‘Pokens’(an in-platform tokens) that are pegged to British Pound so they are stable in this volatile crypto world. And then if one PPT is worth, let’s say 50 GBP, so 10 x 50 = 500 Pokens. And with that you can go ahead and buy an invoice. And the great thing is that as more and more people realize the potential, the more will the value of a single PPT token be, hence the ever bigger invoices for you which then translates to bigger returns. Plus there is always option of pooling for larger invoices and then sharing the profits. Moon?
More on PPT: PPT1
More on PPT: PPT2
More on PPT: PPT2
More on PPT & PPP: PPT vs PPP
More on PPP: PPP
Website PPT: Populous
Website PPP: PayPie
When Moon? When Lambo?
7. Some interesting projects
Here are some interesting projects I found interesting. I am always happy to explore and learn new ways people are finding to solving some old questions. And again, if you know about some other interesting ones, with good potential, very helpful or even not helpful at all but simply funny, I want to heat about it. Post it down bellow!
Basic Attention Token(BAT)
In a world where Data is the king big companies will do all they can to get your data and then sell it to advertisers for a profit. And for it we are bombarded with ads other techniques for selling us thing we don’t really need. With this ecosystem we can choose not to see ads, or see them and be rewarded in coins. Also publishers(blog owners for example) will be rewarded by this as well as by allowing ads in our Brave browser(their search engine) we will effectively be paying them for providing value and keeping us browsing their site. No more middleman and data exploiting.
Website: Basic Attention Token
Oyster Perl(PRL)
Oyster has a very similar premise to that of a BAT token with a slightly different solution to the same problem. Namely they are built on IOTA tangle with the combination of Ethereum technology. Here your website visitors contribute a small portion of their CPU and GPU power to enable users' files to be stored on a decentralized and anonymous ledger aka PoW consensus. And in return, the website owners get paid indirectly by the storage users and website visitors can enjoy an ad-free browsing experience. Really interesting concept. And you can look it up on their website bellow.
Website: Oyster Perl
Kucoin exchange
When buying cryptocurrencies, one of the biggest drawbacks is that not all coins are on all exchanges. Bigger exchanges have more popular ones(not always the case) while the newcomers are usually firstly implemented into smaller exchanges, where it is easier to enter. So somewhat active investor will often times find himself in situation where he has accounts in more exchanges than he/she can count. And one of those options is definitely Kucoin.
Now the reason for the specific mention is that it offers quite an array of benefits:
“24/7 Customer Service: KuCoin offers 24/7 customer service through WeChat and other platforms. They claim that >customer service issues are addressed within 10 minutes.
Profit Sharing Among Token Holders: KuCoin shares 90% of trading fees with users.
Referral System: KuCoin has a referral system where it gives 40% of a user’s transaction fees to the member that >referred them to the platform.
Proof of Stake Bonus: KuCoin shares 50% to users who hold KCS on KuCoin’s exchange. You also earn GAS for holding >NEO on the exchange.
Multiple Currencies: They aim to expand that to 1,000+ cryptocurrencies.
Quarterly Buybacks: KuCoin will buy back KCS each quarter. It will buy back tokens using the 10% of profits collected >from transaction fees. Buybacks will continue until 100 million KCS have been destroyed.” - source
Note: Kucoin discontinued the referral program.
Note2.0: I am very cautious about anything that sounds too good, especially in new space such as this one. But, as I in my research I could not find anything that would imply this to be a scam. But also be aware that one hack can change the whole tune, so my advice is: Trade and get it on your own wallet, preferably a cold storage like Ledger Nano S, just to be safe.
And that reminds me, if buying one of those, be sure to do it from their legitimate websites and NOT eBay, Amazon,.. no matter how reliable the supplier. Heard too much horror stories to risk that!
Website: Kucoin
Ledger Nano S website: Ledger Nano S
Trezor website: Trezor
SmartCash
I found this coin by pure accident and kind of liked it. The reason being is that this privacy coin is completely run by the community. But it is also has a quite good tech. It is also PoS and with being so cheap you can create a masternode for quite cheap. Down bellow I posted some links if you want to find out more about it.
More on SmartCash: YouTube
Website: SmartCash
Veritaseum(VERI)
VERI is one of those projects that offer a great potential. And as of now, their platform(Private Beta stage) offers people to invest Ether in assets(cryptos) that they believe will do well in the future. This is ofcourse birds eye view and the actual platform is much more complex. So make sure to check out the links bellow if interested!
The reason that it found its place in this blog post is that the platform will offer renting your VERI tokens in order to be able to use the platform itself.
But the main drawback with all this is that it is highly dependent on its one sole creator and mastermins, Reggie Middleton, for vision, knowledge and guidance. And with this we have to rely on his motivation and expertise.
But even so, Reggie is highly respected and capable man. More on him here and here.
More on Veritaseum: YouTube
Website: Veritaseum
And to finally conclude, the great thing about this strategy is that we do not touch our initial investment, we just let it sit there, grow in value and then, simply reap the rewards from it. And now, relax, let your investment do the work for you, give you that steady influx of money and a well deserved vacation! Just don't forget to save up for that sweet, sweet lambo! After all 'All work no play makes Jack a dull boy' :D
May the Harvest Gods be kind to us
Phew!!…. That was a long read wasn’t it? :D Well THANKS to everyone that stayed till the end. You are Amazing!
Hopefully you found value in this post and that it sets you up for some long-term gains! If feeling it, I would very much appreciate an UPVOTE &/or RESTEEM, this will buy a bit more of that passive income fuel and keep these posts rolling! If not, thanks anyway for stopping by and have an amazing day fellow Steemians.
Cheers!