Mittwoch, 9. September 2015

How To Earn Bitcoin: 10 Ways & 101 Websites

Today there are almost as many ways to earn bitcoin as there are ways to earn any other kind of money. In one sense that makes this an easy article to write – its not difficult to learn how to earn bitcoins. In other ways it makes it very tough to write, because there is no ‘one-size fits all’ answer which is going to suite everybody who might end up on this page.
In all honesty the best way to earn bitcoin is just to stop thinking about it as something different from the regular fiat money that you use everyday. How do you get money usually? Well, that is probably how you should go about earning digital currency as well.  But of course I do realize that its not always that simple. Perhaps you just want to get hold of a small amount of Bitcoin to try it out before buying some. You may also be struggling to earn money at all, and are interested in exploring new opportunities within this exciting new economy, or using it to supplement your income. And, of course,not very many bosses are going to be happy to pay you in BTC, so you may not think it is possible for you to earn bitcoin the same way you earn fiat money (hint: it is possible). If any of those scenarios apply to you, then hopefully this page can be of some help, at least pointing you in the right direction.
Because there are so many different opportunities out there, my guide on how to earn bitcoin will not provide a comprehensive list of every single website. Instead I will introduce you to around 10 general strategies with some links to a few of the best websites for each one and information about how to find more. The 101 websites from the title includes sites listed in other Cryptorials articles which this page links to.

Earn Bitcoins From Faucet Websites

If you are just looking for a quick and easy way to get a small amount of bitcoin then faucets might be exactly what you are looking for. A faucet is just a website which gives free coins to every visitor. You will have to fill out a captcha to prove you are a real life human being and not an automated bot trying to game the system, you may need to let your balance build up to a threshold level before the coins are sent (so they aren’t all eaten up by transaction fees), and there will usually be a limit on how often you can claim from each site; but apart from that its just as simple as providing your wallet address and asking for some free coins to be sent to you. Some of these site are set up by enthusiasts who just want to introduce new people to digital currency, but today most faucets support themselves using advertising placed on the site.
You are certainly not going to earn a living using faucets – even if you are living in a basic wooden hut in the very cheapest location in the world you would probably not be able to do that. But you can quickly and easily get a few coins to get yourself started and make a test transaction or two to get familiar with using digital currency without needing to buy any coins.
Here are some of the best faucet websites:
  1. Bitcoin Zebra – Claim every hour and get one of the highest payouts available from a faucet
  2. Moon Bitcoin – You can choose to claim every 5 minutes to maximize your earnings over the day, or claim once per day for the highest payout per claim.
  3. FreeBitco.in – One of the longest running faucet sites around, with a generous hourly payout.
  4. Weekend Bitcoin –  Regularly offers extra money for claims over the weekend
  5. Bitcoin Cryptorials – Yes, we have our own faucet here at Cryptorials!

GPT Websites and ‘Microtasks’

One step up from faucets are GPT websites where you ‘get paid to’ do various quick tasks, sometimes called ‘microtasks’. Again, you are not going to make a decent living for yourself by using these websites, but if you have time on your hands and you are looking for something you can start straight away and continue to do whenever you have a few spare minutes, and which will earn you a few more coins that you can get from just claiming from faucets, then these sites may be worth a look.
Typically tasks can range from watching youtube videos that somebody is paying to promote, to clicking ad links and spending 30 seconds on a website, to filling out surveys and completing offers, or even doing a little bit of basic data entry.
Here are some of the best sites to ‘get paid to’ do simple tasks:
  1. CoinBucks – A wide range of surveys as well as various promotional offers, some of which require you to make a purchase and some of which just want you to do things like accept a free 30 day trial or download some free software. You may not find a lot of offers you want to complete, but you do get a really good amount of BTC per offer.
  2. CoinAd – Get paid to click advert links and spend a certain amount of time on each site (usually 30 seconds or less). I’ve tested out a few similar services and this one seems to have the highest payments.
  3. BitcoinYellowPages – This directory service pays for the microtask of submitting business listings. If you can do a little bit of research and data entry then it might be worth a look.

Earn Bitcoins as a Content Producer

If you can create premium digital content then you will find that Bitcoin provides the perfect way for you to sell it over the internet.
  1. Bittit – If you have photographs or other images to sell then you could do worse than to take a look at this site, which provides a market for both stock photos and pornographic images.
  2. Watch My Bit – Upload your videos to this site and select your own ‘pay per view’ price.
  3. Streamium – Stream live video to your fans, charge per second, and get paid directly via the blockchain with no middlemen.
  4. Pastecoin – You can sell any text paste with this service, but it is most commonly used as a market for code snippets and simple website scripts.

Make A Website to Earn Bitcoin

Of course if you are going to produce digital content then you may prefer to create your own website rather than allowing somebody else to publish it for you. There are loads of great ad networks and affiliate programs that will help you to generate bitcoin revenue from your site. Take a look at these articles for more information and ideas about publishing your own website:
  1. Earn Bitcoin by Blogging
  2. Make Your Own Faucet site
  3. The Best Bitcoin Affiliate Programs

Earn Bitcoins on Social Media

You don’t even need to have your own website to start generating an income – if you are have a strong social media presence or you fancy yourself as a bit of a marketing guru, you can earn some free coins through social media. Here are some of the best websites that may help you do that:
  • Changetip – This is the most popular platform for tipping across many different social media sites, and even provides you with a custom link that you can add to your profile page to receive tips. Post great content,  make yourself useful, and wait for the tips to start rolling in.
  • Coinurl.com – If you are a prolific link sharer who gets a lot of clicks on everything you share then interstitial ad services like Coinurl offer you a way to earn coins from every link you share with your followers by placing an ad before the content you are sharing.
  • – Check out the referral / affiliate programs mentioned in the previous section – you can promote these and earn using social media too!
  • Re 2et in – Get paid in BTC for retweeting sponsored tweets.

Get A Job Which Pays in Bitcoin

  1. Coinality -Global jobs board and the option to upload your resume
  2. Bit Task – Mostly freelance work
  3. CoinDesk Jobs – Well paid full time positions, including listings from some major employers who are willing to pay you in BTC.
  4. BitcoinTalk Services Board – A great place to look for casual and freelance work within the digital currency industry.

Get Your Regular Wage in BTC

If you have a job then you can get paid in Bitcoin. It doesn’t even matter if your boss has never heard of cryptocurrency or even if they are a strident critic of it – you can get your regular wage paid to you in digital currency without your boss even knowing about it. The following services will take your paycheck and either convert the whole thing, or just convert a portion of it, and automatically send the coins to your digital wallet.
  1. BitWage – This is the best known company providing a service like this. They provide you with bank details to give to your employer, then when you get paid they convert whatever percentage you want and send your money to you the next day.
  2. Get Paid in Bitcoin – An Australian service provider which will work with your employer to let them easily pay your wage the way you want it to be paid.

Sell Stuff

If you are looking for some spare cash to provide a one-off boost to your finances then digging through your old stuff and picking out a few things that you no longer need to sell on over the internet is a good way to go. But of course you can’t just go to eBay if you want to sell your stuff for BTC. Fortunately, there are some great alternatives out there which let you do exactly that. This may also be a great way for  you to start off your own business if have something that people want to buy. Here are some of the best sites to earn bitcoin by selling stuff online:
  1. CryptoThrift – This site is amongst the most popular auctions sites which let you sell your things for either bitcoin or one of the supported altcoins.
  2. BidBit – Another great ebay-style auction website for bitcoiners.
  3. Shopify – If you want to go beyond just selling a few old things and actually look into setting up your own retail business then Shopify provides one of the world’s most popular ways to set up an online store, and will let you sell for either bitcoin, fiat, or both.
  4. Open Bazaar – This decentralized marketplace provides a way to buy and sell anything for BTC. Here’s why its better than eBay.

Bitcoin Revenue Sharing

Many website today are based around ‘user generated content’. That means they provide a platform, whether its a social network, a blog publishing site, an image sharing site, or a thousand other things, and their users actually fill it up with useful stuff. To many people that doesn’t seem very fair, because the site’s users are providing most of the value but getting nothing in return. Revenue sharing is a way to even out that imbalance by paying part of the advertising revenue generated by a piece of content (which could be anything from a social media post to a video) o the person who originally posted it. There are loads of revenue sharing sites out there which pay in bitcoin, but here is a selection of the best ones:
  1. BitLanders – A social media website where it really does pay to share.
  2. Paste4BTC – Get a share of the ad revenue from your text pastes.
  3. Taringa – A Latin American social media site with digital currency revenue sharing

Earn Bitcoins Playing Video Games

Yes, you read that right – you can get paid to play video games. Of course you probably aren’t going to earn all that much, but I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to get paid.
There are actually dozens of sites in this category so if you are interested please take a look at the full list in our Get Paid to Play Video Games article!

Section 11 – Other Stuff

  • CoinByCall – This service fascinates me, but doesn’t work in every country which unfortunately means I haven’t been able to test it. If you have any free minutes on your call plan this company can use them, and will pay you by the minute for letting them do so.

How To Short Bitcoin: 5 Ways To Profit From a Falling BTC Price

The price of any currency or asset goes both up and down over time – and Bitcoin is no different. If you have developed an interest in Bitcoin as an investment, rather than just a way to make payments and avoid feeding the sins of the banking industry, you should therefore consider looking at ways to make a prifit from a falling bitcoin price as well as increases in value. Buy and hold (or hodl as many bitcoiners say) can be good sometimes, but it can’t be the best option 100% of the time – sometimes you will need to ‘go short’ – effectively betting on the price going down.

See Also: How To Make a Profit Trading Bitcoin

There are various different ways that you can ‘go short’. Of course if you own a large stash of BTC then you can just sell a few in the hope of buying them back later at a cheaper price. This is the easiest way, but there are other methods that can potentially give you a larger profit – although be warned that this usually means they will also give you a bigger loss if you are wrong and the price goes up.

Here are three of the most popular answers to the question – how to short bitcoin?

1. Margin Trading at Bitfinex

Margin trading means that you borrow money in order to make a trade. For example, if you have 1 bitcoin you would like to use to bet on the price going down, you may be able to use that 1 BTC to borrow 10 btc at 1:10 leverage. This means you will either make 10 times the profit or 10 times the loss.

Check out the video below for a super simply guide to shorting btc using Bitfinex

2. Sell Bitcoin Futures

A futures contract gives its buyer the right to purchase a currency or commodity at a fixed price at some specified date in the future. A person buying this contract is therefore betting that the price will go up, meaning that when their contract expires they can buy at below market price and sell immediately for a profit. The person selling the contract profits if the price goes down, because when the contract expires the other party will have to buy their coins from them at above market price. If you already own Bitcoin this can be a good alternative to ‘hedge your bets’ and profit from a downturn in price, without having to actually sell your coins – because if your coins are bought from you at above market price you can just buy them back on the open market and take the difference as your profit.

You can sell futures contracts at OrderBook.net

3. Bitcoin Options Contracts

Options are another financial derivative which can be used to profit on both rises and falls in price. You can use options to place a bet that the value of Bitcoin will be higher or lower than a particular value at a certain point in the future (say after 1 day, or 1 week), or that the value will or won’t hit a certain level above or below its current price within a particular time period.

You can purchase options contracts or create your own and pay with BTC through services such as BTC Oracle

Another options service with 5 different order types and a kind of practice account set-up for learning how to use them is Gryfx

4. Binary Options

Binary options are a simplified type of options contract, usually aimed at day traders. You simply bet that the price will be higher (in which case you are buying a ‘call’ option) or lower (a ‘put’ option) than its current value at a specified point in the future – usually measured in hours with the end of that day as the limit. This fill give you a fixed profit, usually around 40-80%, if you are correct, but you will lose everything if you are incorrect. This is a ery high risk high return method which often appeals to gamblers.

You can buy Binary options for BTC at Satoshi Options or for USD at AnyOption

5. Electronically Traded Funds (ETFs)

ETFs are funds that track the price of a currency, commodity or asset without actually owning any of it. You can use an ETF to go ‘long’ or ‘short’ – depending on whether you think the price will go up or down. ETFs often come with reliable high level leverage (1:10 or even 1:20).

A popular international ETF fund can be traded through Pluss500