As the market evolves, people are keen to receive and make cryptocurrency payments for rendered goods and services. In the early days of Bitcoin, if you weren’t a miner, one of the few ways to acquire one was by using a Bitcoin faucet that dispensed BTC every time you completed a few simple tasks. Currently, many forward-looking companies, to be precise tech startups, are happy to pay staffers and freelancers in crypto. Similarly, there are several ways for gamers to stack satoshis, "Bitcoin equivalent to ‘cents' or pennies," and claim crypto simply for their streaming and audience engagement.

This guide will give you a fair look at how you can earn crypto. Also, we will consider the benefits involved with businesses that opt to pay employees and freelancers using crypto and accept it as a mode of payment.

How to gain crypto as a gamer

The video game industry is now worth close to over $26.14 billion(2023). Previously, gamers had no avenue for monetizing their activities in the virtual world. Now, that has changed thanks to the emergence of content-sharing platforms like Twitch and DLive, new monetization models, including subscription services, and the proliferation of esports tournaments. In an in-depth report based on responses from over 4,800 global gamers, over 50% would like to become professionals provided they can support themselves financially while they do what they love best, "Gaming." Looking at the 2023 global gamers statistics.

Most gamers are largely young and tech-savvy, so it's no surprise that most will prefer to accept crypto rather than fiat currency. Various platforms have made it possible to do just that. Since these gamers would be playing anyway, these solutions are essentially how to make free cryptocurrency from daily life.

These are various platforms.

DLive

DLive is a blockchain-based live-streaming platform. DLive uses its own “virtual reward point system” known as Lemon. Lemon is a virtual currency used to reward gamers or pay for subscriptions in the DLive ecosystem, The unit price of Lemon is fixed at around $0.013 USD, and payouts are made to gamers by-weekly. The minimum threshold for payouts is about 4,250 Lemons ($51 USD), but because DLive is owned by TRON, gamers not domiciled in the United States can also request payment in TRX, BTT, or USDT stablecoins. Lemons cannot be transacted outside of the platform.

Twitch

This is an Amazon-owned streaming service with over 16 million daily users. Twitch has had a love-hate relationship with cryptocurrency. In early 2018, the platform accepted subscription payments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, but in mid-2019, it quietly abandoned support for the assets. Then, in 2020, Twitch flipped the script once more, going so far as to offer a 10% discount to subscribers who paid in crypto. Twitch has really expanded its crypto support to include Ethereum (ETH) and USD-pegged stablecoins such as GUSD, USDC, PAX, and BUSD.

While Twitch gamers themselves can’t accumulate cryptocurrency, they can accrue in-game virtual assets known as Bits (each one’s worth 1 cent), which are redeemable for fiat. Perhaps Twitch will let gamers swap Bits for Bitcoin in the near future.

You really don’t have to be a professional gamer with an army of devoted supporters to make some cryptocurrency from gaming. Immersive Virtual Reality games like Decentraland, Sandbox, and Somnium Space have their own economies and currencies, meaning players can buy and sell virtual land and in-game assets represented by Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Gamers can develop experiences and charge others for entry, rent out virtual land, or participate in events run by fellow players.

Rally

Rally looks a little different from platforms like DLive and Twitch.

It was designed to enable gamers to accumulate without relying on the aforementioned services via a separate economy where supporters can buy, donate, and hold unique assets known as Creator Coins. Since these Creator Coins are entirely unique to the streamer in question and have monetary value like any other asset with a finite supply and volume, they can help gamers accumulate even if they get censored from a platform or leave for any reason. Co-founder Amit Ranade said, “Creator Coins empower content creators to build a whole new marketplace around their brand and community, opening the floodgates for both content creators and their fans to participate in a greatly expanded creator economy.”

The Enjin Platform specializes in minting NFTs for the gaming market and helping developers (and, in turn, gamers) integrate blockchain and monetize gameplay. Billions of assets have been created to date, each backed by Enjin Coin (ENJ), an ERC20 token with real-world value. ENJ is available for trading on many of the world’s top crypto exchanges.

Believe it or not, some platforms look forward to paying those who watch gamers live-stream their exploits online. San Francisco startup Refereum, for instance, is working on ways to pay viewers in Tron’s TRX coin and BitTorrent’s BTT token following a partnership agreement struck with the companies in 2019.

There are many decentralized applications (dApps), particularly on Ethereum, TRON, and EOS, that bring monetization to the world of gaming. The most successful has been CryptoKitties, which aims to breed collectible cats. At the peak of the viral game’s popularity, one player sold a CryptoKitty for $170,000 worth of ETH.

How to accumulate cryptocurrency as a freelancer

Don’t worry if you are not a gamer, there are other ways to obtain cryptocurrency as a freelancer, whatever your profession and whether you’re looking for a one-off gig or full-time employment. 

Crypto-friendly freelancing job sites include:

cryptogrind.com 2. coinality.com 3. crypto.jobs 4. bitgigs.com

5.blocklancer.net 6. anytask.com

Many employers are out there willing to pay in crypto and are looking to hire engineers, smart contract developers, PR people with contacts in the blockchain press, etc. New job networks are coming online all the time. The Keep3r Network, for instance, is “a decentralized keeper network for projects that need external DevOps and for external teams to find keeper jobs.” It’s a rather technical process compared to standard job sites, with employers able to register jobs by submitting proposals via governance – but it’s another option for crypto job-seekers.

There are a few benefits of using these platforms over more established freelance portals like Fiverr, Upwork and PeoplePerHour. For a start, you can retain a greater degree of personal privacy. What’s more, you can accumulate even if you don’t have a bank account – crypto is as close to a frictionless, borderless currency as it’s possible to get.

Freelancers can also avoid the increasingly unfair commissions associated with traditional job sites. And there’s another bugbear: when paid via bank transfer, it can often take a week or longer for payments to clear. And that’s after the freelance site has taken its cut.

If you’re an employer interested in paying staff or contractors in cryptocurrency, a platform like Bitwage can help set you up. If you’re creative, you will quickly discover how to obtain crypto as a gig worker.

Gain crypto as a business.

As mentioned, businesses can profit from cutting a middleman (e.g., a bank) out of the picture and accepting cryptocurrency as a mode of payment. Fast, secure, and low-cost transactions aren’t the only benefit; companies tap into a wider user base, including 1.7 billion who don’t have access to a bank account. With PayPal recently confirming support for cryptocurrencies, digital assets can now be spent at 26 million merchant stores. Given that 429 million PayPal accounts are worldwide, it’s a major win for the industry.

There’s another benefit for companies that let customers pay in crypto: because blockchain payments are irreversible, there’s no risk of chargebacks. In a 2019 survey, risk manager LexisNexis estimated that merchants lose as much as $3.13 for every dollar in chargeback costs. 

According to coinmap.org, over 18,600 businesses, including cafes, grocery stores, retailers, and travel firms, directly accept cryptocurrency. Of course, millions of retailers accept Visa and Mastercard, both of which have partnered with several crypto platforms in recent years (Wirex, Revolut, Binance, Coinbase, etc.). Crypto debit cards have become commonplace, and though the merchant doesn’t receive digital assets directly (the card issuer automatically converts to fiat), the involvement of trusted firms like Visa and Mastercard has helped the industry immensely, providing a frictionless way for everyday users to spend their tokens.

NB: There are endless ways to fatten your Bitcoin bankroll. Gaming, working, and selling goods are just a few of them. However, you choose to accumulate, know that you’re doing your part to make the crypto ecosystem stronger while boosting your earnings.