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Dear Vice Column,
For various reasons I've sat on the sidelines of the cryptocurrency craze and have largely ignored it as a fad. While it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, are the days of getting rich off crypto over? I'm finally at a place financially where I'm looking into ways to diversify my investments — but I don't exactly have much to spare and the volatility of crypto markets makes me nervous. How should someone who wants to dabble in crypto get started, if at all?
- Crypto noob
Dear Crypto noob,
Bitcoin, at 14 years old, is one of the most well known cryptocurrencies. It's recently gone through exponential growth and hovers around $40,000 per BTC. Roughly two years ago, it was valued at Ethereum's cost today, ~$3000 USD. A couple of months ago, ETH was trading about 20% lower, which means it's doubled what stock index funds might return in a year. But, it could just as easily be 20% lower — or more. All this is to say, crypto is volatile af, and no one would fault you for being wary.
One advantage of crypto is you're actually able to buy fractional shares unlike some stocks and ETFs. So if you don't have the stomach or funds to gamble away your hard earned money for a whole Bitcoin, you could always start out with buying a little bit here and there. Or, since there are so many cryptocurrencies out there, you could buy some for pennies per coin and hope they'll appreciate as much as Bitcoin and Ethereum. A $100 investment today would get you ~680 Dogecoin. Would you be rich if it went back its all time high of $0.75? Not at that amount, but the return could encourage you to continue dabbling if you become comfortable with the risk.
If you're actually reluctant to spend money, there are several ways to earn crypto for free in exchange for your time and usage of their services that's relatively low risk. Most platforms will require you to upload a legitimate government ID and sometimes a social security number to validate your account. Always do your research to check if the companies you're handing personal info to are legitimate operators.
What's the catch? They're hoping that after making a sticky app where you engage in fun or educational ways, that you'll eventually start spending your money to trade crypto. Or, in some cases such as Brave Rewards, they surely get a cut of ad profits. But, what you earn is yours to keep, and there's no obligation to spend money. You could then hold onto it and hope it'll appreciate over time. Some even let you earn interest on your crypto as you hold.
Whether it's through a platform, or getting crypto for buying a burger (see Burger King and Shake Shack), fight the urge to cash out for nominal amounts of money just in case something ends up being worth millions of dollars a few years down the road. If you're earning it for free, it's going to be more for the novelty than actually getting rich, so you might want to set it and forget it and see what happens in another 14 years.
Earn passive crypto:
Download the Brave Rewards browser and use it instead of your current browser. By allowing ads, you can earn Basic Attention Token (BAT). To collect the BAT generated from Brave, link an Uphold or Gemini wallet. With the latter, you can earn interest on your BAT, currently at the rate of 1.01% APY.
Once you’re using Brave (or other browsers) you can also earn crypto by using Presearch as your search engine. Your first 30 searches per day will earn you PRE. Setting up Presearch as your default search engine makes it even easier to earn.
Another way to earn crypto by browsing is by using the SWASH plugin to share some of your browsing data. The reality is with any other browser, your data’s going to be sold without your consent anyway so you might as well make money by opting in to which sites you’ll allow SWASH to capture.
Learn and earn crypto:
Coinbase not only gives out $10 in bitcoin, they also let you earn different crypto just by learning about crypto and taking short quizzes. Since joining, I’ve earned free Bitcoin (BTC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Ethereum (ETH), The Graph (GRT), Amp (AMP), SKALE (SKL) and Enzyme (MLN).
Ember Fund let’s you “mine” Bitcoin every day by pressing a “start earning” button in the app. It doesn't actually use any computing power to mine, but while you watch your satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) accrue, they share tidbits about crypto. The default lets you earn 2.5 Satoshis an hour — or more if you qualify for any of their boosts.
Do a little, earn a little:
Freecash is an easy way to earn by signing up for offers and completing tasks such as surveys. It’s a bit confusing, but if you pay attention to their social media channels, they often give away drops of Freecash that can then be cashed out for Bitcoin, cash and gift cards.