David Morey 
Here in the digital age, cryptocurrency is a burgeoning industry that’s piqued the curiosity of a wide demographic of global consumers. During the earlier days of crypto development, the market appealed more to tech geeks and experienced investors. But it’s a different story here in 2024, with everything from the rise of meme coins to NFTs becoming a cultural trend accelerating the integration of cryptocurrencies into the mainstream.
The utility and versatility of decentralized currencies also make them highly intriguing to anyone with an interest in personal finance and investing. Did you know, however, that acquiring crypto can also open a number of viable ways to generate a passive income? In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the top four ways to earn money through crypto, irrespective of how much experience you have in the blockchain realm.
GameFi
Crypto and blockchain gaming is a major sector that’s undergone substantial growth over the past few years. The market now encompasses a vast array of gaming experiences, from Bitcoin blackjack to blockchain-powered virtual gaming platforms a la Metacade. Then, there’s the Play to Earn sector, which as the name suggests, is composed of video games that offer a genuine earning potential.
What sets P2E games apart from all other digital gaming sectors is that they actively seek to reward players for their participation, as opposed to having to compete for rewards. These rewards typically take the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which are digital assets with real-world value, and native currency tokens. Since the sole ownership of the asset passes to the player (and there’s proof of ownership on the underlying blockchain), it’s then possible to trade, sell, or even convert the asset into fiat currencies.
Crypto Investing
Despite their volatility, cryptocurrencies are an attractive asset class and a staple of successful investment portfolios. Crypto investing is a highly popular way to store and grow financial wealth, but there are a few things to be aware of if you really want to maximize passive income benefits.
For instance, taking a “first mover” approach is a concept that can be successfully applied to crypto products — following careful research, of course. The idea behind this approach is to invest in new, innovative projects during their initial stages. Even phenomenally successful coins like Ethereum and BinaceCoin were themselves once new entrants, and the individuals who backed them early have since looked at gains of over 1.6 million percent and 600,000%, respectively.
One of the more accessible ways to invest in crypto is to look for dividend-earning tokens. Just as companies distribute profits to shareholders at the end of a set period, so too do a limited number of cryptocurrency projects. In most cases, the dividends take the form of a percentage of trading fees or profits from a native token. For example, the decentralized crypto exchange KuCoin, which has the KCS token as its native currency, issues daily dividends to investors based on a percentage of its platform fees.
Staking
Another increasingly trendy way to earn passive income from crypto assets is the process of staking. Now, you will need to have some degree of technical knowledge, but with so many blockchain resources at your fingertips courtesy of the “information superhighway”, it won’t take you long to gain a fundamental understanding of how staking works.
To get you started, you can think of staking as a process that involves putting your idle crypto assets to work validating transitions on a proof-of-stake blockchain. As the owner of the asset, you’ll receive a fee for the “work” that’s been done.
If you already use a crypto exchange, it’s worth checking to see if your chosen service enables automatic staking. If they do, you’ll simply have to hold the eligible currency to quality, and the exchange will take care of the rest.
Crypto Lending
Compared to GameFi or automatic staking, getting started with crypto lending practices is rather more involved, but the underlying premise is simple enough to understand. Just like financial institutions will earn interest on the assets that are loaned to customers, it’s possible to earn interest on the decentralized currencies you own by loaning them out via reputable lending platforms.
Lending platforms can be either centralized, where the option to loan your currencies can crossover with interest-bearing options or decentralized platforms. If you choose to lend in the decentralized market, your assets will be deposited into a set protocol, which will then generate tokens based on the interest earned.
It’s even possible to rent out NFTs in the decentralized market via the appropriately named reNFT protocol. Renting your NFTs can be a faster way of generating passive income than lending cryptocurrencies since most users only need the use of the asset for a limited period of time. You may not think so, but there are several reasons why someone would want to rent NFTs, such as temporarily loaning a gaming token or an event ticket to access pre-sales and other incentives.
