“Cryptocurrency generates income,” social networks promise. “Investing in digital assets is profitable,” experts say during interviews for news publications. “The fastest way to get rich is via crypto,” the newly-minted millionaires assure. But how can this actually be done?
Only one thing is clear: you have to invest first in order to earn money. However, not everyone is ready to part with their hard-earned money in such an adventurous endeavor, hoping to make a profit. So, what do we do?
There’s a solution — you can get cryptocurrency for free! Let’s figure out how.
Popular Ways to Get Crypto for Free
We’ll take a look at the top four most popular ways to get free cryptocurrency. Looking ahead, here’s a spoiler: some of these ways are only conditionally free, as they’ll require some minimal investment.
Airdrops and Bounty Programs
Some new crypto projects run airdrops, a free giveaway of their tokens to users. To get these tokens, you’ll often need to fulfill certain conditions, such as subscribing to a newsletter or registering on the project’s platform. The purpose of airdrops is usually to attract new users, increase project awareness, and stimulate activity in the community.
Additionally, some projects offer bounty programs where users can complete various tasks such as writing articles, creating videos, or creating content. After successfully completing the task, users are rewarded with project tokens.
The process of participating in such giveaways can vary from project to project, but the following steps are usually the basis:
- registering on the platform or app and providing the necessary information;
- fulfilling the giveaway conditions, e.g., reposts on social media, writing articles, creating videos, etc.;
- checking and confirming you’ve fulfilled the conditions, e.g., using a special form with links to completed tasks;
- receiving tokens to the cryptocurrency wallet address.
It’s crucial to be cautious with the information you share when choosing airdrops and bounty programs to participate in. Scammers very often use such giveaways in their schemes to gain access to the personal data or funds of those carelessly seeking easy money.
The most important thing is to never enter passwords or provide access to private keys to cryptocurrency wallets on such platforms!
To minimize risks, it’s better to choose projects on trusted services. Here are a few of them:
- Airdrop Alert. This platform provides a list of current airdrops and notifications of updates in projects.
- Airdrop Bob. This service offers a list of actual airdrops and detailed information about participating in them.
- Airdrops.io. This resource provides a list of available airdrops and information on how to participate in each of them.
CoinMarketCap and various social platforms such as Reddit, Telegram, or Bitcointalk are also suitable for tracking the market of available token giveaways. However, when using social platforms for these purposes, you should be especially vigilant, check the reliability and authenticity of projects, and carefully examine the terms of participation to avoid fraud or any unpleasant surprises.
Referral Programs
Another way to get cryptocurrency for free is to participate in referral programs. Some crypto projects offer rewards for attracting new users or customers to their platform. This usually involves giving the user a special unique referral link or code that the program participant must distribute. Here’s how it works step-by-step:
- registering on a platform that offers a referral program;
- receiving a referral link or code;
- distributing the referral link to friends, acquaintances, or online communities.
The program conditions must be met in order to receive the reward. Some projects award bonuses only for clicking on a link, while other referral programs require users to click on a link and register on the platform. Other projects award bonuses only if users who clicked on the referral link use the services or purchase the offered goods. Frequently, referral programs combine all three methods, and rewards are awarded depending on how many users clicked, registered, or made a purchase via a referral link. It’s simple — the more the better!
One thing to note is that participation in referral programs isn’t the fastest way to earn crypto. A participant can only share a link but in no way can they influence how quickly it’ll attract new users. However, it can be a source of free cryptocurrency in the long run, especially if you’re an active social media user or webmaster.
As with other ways to get crypto for free, choosing which referral programs to participate in should be done with extreme caution. Scammers actively attract users to distribute phishing links, promising them big bonuses and instant rewards.
There are several trusted websites that provide opportunities to find and exchange referral links. Here are some of them:
Faucets
There are specialized crypto faucets that provide a small number of coins each time a user performs a certain action or simply visits the project’s website.
It’s possible to get cryptocurrency for free through faucets, but you should be aware that the amounts are usually small, and the process can be quite slow. To get cryptocurrency through faucets, you need to:
- register and authenticate;
- view the offered content or perform a few simple tasks;
- collect rewards.
Some faucets offer users accumulative bonuses, i.e., the more often you use the service, the higher the percentage of rewards will be. In addition, some faucets may have limits on the time between receiving rewards or on the maximum amount that can be earned at once. Moreover, most of these services have a withdrawal limit, meaning that you need to earn a certain minimum amount of crypto to withdraw it to your wallet.
As with any other way to get free cryptocurrency, you need to be vigilant and avoid suspicious projects, carefully studying their reputation. Here are some verified faucets:
The biggest disadvantage of crypto faucets is their short-lived nature. There are literally a few long-livers left on the market that continue to operate, however, most of the popular services of this type have disappeared. Therefore, don’t expect a stable income from this method of obtaining cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain Gaming
Many blockchain gaming projects hold various events and contests in which participants can win tokens or NFTs. Participating in gaming projects can be an interesting way to get free cryptocurrency because you can have a good time and have fun in the process.
To attract new users, encourage active participation in the game, and stimulate interest in the project, gaming platforms can provide an opportunity to get free cryptocurrency for:
- Participating in tournaments and competitions. For winning, participants receive cryptocurrency as a prize. Such tournaments can be both one-time and regular to keep players active.
- Completing game missions. Quests and missions can be presented within the game worlds, the fulfillment of which will allow you to get crypto or game tokens.
- Inviting friends. Some projects offer the opportunity to get free cryptocurrency when you attract new users.
- Actively participating in the community. Some gaming projects provide free tokens or NFTs to their active users as a reward for their active participation and support.
- Participating in beta testing of the game. You can get free tokens or NFTs by testing a new game and providing feedback to the developers.
You probably noticed that the last few items were the already mentioned ways — referral and bounty programs.
Moreover, blockchain gaming teams often give away free tokens to users as part of various holidays or promotions. Often, gaming projects offer free in-game tokens, most of which can’t be withdrawn to a cryptocurrency wallet and can only be used within the project.
P2E apps, which reward users for their participation in a project, and the amount of reward depends directly on user activity, are one of the subsectors of GameFi that deserve special attention in the context of receiving free tokens in gaming projects.
You can also get free coins while playing a lot of minigames. These apps usually have limited functionality and low-quality graphics. The only purpose of such projects is to generate activity and sell ads. It’s worth noting that playing such games is often not fun and tedious, and the rewards are meager. Furthermore, most of these games involve restrictions on withdrawals, so you can earn cryptocurrency, but you have to play these games for months to really get it.
Pitfalls of Getting Free Crypto
The very first thing to understand is that free ways to get cryptocurrency can be an interesting experience and become a starting point for getting acquainted with the world of digital assets. But nothing more. To get a tangible profit, free ways won’t be enough.
There are other pitfalls that are important to be aware of before trying to get cryptocurrency for free:
- Low-quality projects. Among the crypto projects that are willing to give away their tokens for free, there are a lot of fraudulent ones. As they say: the only free cheese is in the mousetrap. Thus, projects offering free cryptocurrencies may not be reliable enough or may be created only to steal your personal data.
- Low profitability. Most free ways to get cryptocurrency usually don’t let you obtain a large number of tokens, and they may not be worth anything at all.
- High competition. Everyone wants freebies, so the market is overflowing with other participants who also want to get rich with free tokens.
- Time is money. Getting crypto for free can require considerable time and effort. You should consider whether your personal time is worth such “earnings.”
- Withdrawal restrictions. Some services may provide cryptocurrency for free but with a withdrawal restriction so that users can’t immediately withdraw the received assets and have to keep them on the platform. So, you’ll just have to stare at your digital wealth without being able to do anything with it.
In short, if you choose to get cryptocurrency for free, you should first carefully study the project and the necessary conditions for obtaining assets, as dubious projects can not only waste your time but also lead to leaks of personal information.
To sum up, there are other ways to receive crypto without buying it besides those described above. All these methods are ineffective when it comes to obtaining tangible profits and getting rich with assets that are given away for free is unlikely to work. You should also think about what to do with the received “wealth.” After all, as John Davison Rockefeller, the first billionaire in the history of mankind, said: money should work. And cryptocurrency is also a form of money, so there are no exceptions. But we’ll talk about what to do with cryptocurrency a bit later.
