As promised, I'm finally going to pull together all my favorite ways of acquiring free crypto within a single post.

Now this post isn't trying to present every option out there. It's just my favorite ones. If you have other favorites, share in the comments. 

## Earning By Doing Methods

<br>Some ways of earning crypto require activity on your part. Among those my favorites are:

* **Shopping** - You can earn on average 7% cash back in the form of BTC every time you shop at [Lolli](https://lolli.com/ref/PfgrqXher4). I don't think I'd shop a store I never buy online from just to get the cash back, but it's worth installing the browser plugin and developing the habit of navigating through Lolli when going to shop one's regular stores. The merchant wins too, because you'll probably patronize them more often when you get used to getting the crypto from them, but not their competitors you sometimes used to patronize also.<br><br>The percentage cash back you get varies between merchants according to their agreements with Lolli. The sorting of the list of available merchants is some mystery system, so I suggest you use the search bar to find stores by category if you don't want to scroll for half an hour to really see what's there. <br><br>Some of the included merchants are Walgreens, Walmart, Vitacost, Marriott, Bloomingdales, and even Tony Robbins programs. Groupon gives back 9%, as do numerous other popular merchants.

* **Freelancing** - There are quite a few of these out there, so I'll just pick one at random to cover here, which is my fav, [Cryptogrind](http://www.cryptogrind.com/?r=5d20a06dfbd7cd1fe5dfd6f1). I find they have the most interesting selection of jobs needing doing, and that they pay better than others I've seen, even for someone living in the West. <br><br>Some of the current listings include: $600 for Tagging And Social Media Posting of memes, $100 for crypto marketing advice, or $12/hour for helping with Adwords. Not great wages for someone living someplace like NYC, but not bad work one can do in spare time from home for people living in most places, even in America. <br><br>If you're looking for a full-time job as a crypto developer or business professional, check out [Crypto Jobs](https://crypto.jobs).

* **All Things STEEM** - Of course there is an entire STEEM ecosystem where you can earn crypto for creating all kinds of content, [recommending products](https://steemhunt.com/), [playing games](https://steemmonsters.com/), [getting fit](https://actifit.io/) and so on. But you already know about that, since here we are! There are also similar platforms for paid content creation like Whaleshares.io and Publish0x. 

* **Airdrops** - One might classify this as passive earning, but most airdrops require you complete some activities to get the coins/tokens. Usually this is social media support: liking, following, sharing, etc. Now I can't say I personally have a favorite for this. Really I would put Steemit as my top source for finding airdrops I want to participate in. There's a great [Energi](https://earndrop.energi.world/homepage.php?ref=91641) airdrop I found here on Steemit that I applied to recently, which will be great if I ever wind up actually getting approved. (They've had my application for some time now, but may have waited to do all the approvals at the end of the round.) <br><br>When I've applied to airdrops just finding them other places online, I've never wound up actually getting the coins. So I consider it mostly a waste of time and would rather earn crypto in other ways. But if airdrops are something you'd like to try as a crypto wealth strategy, probably the most established resource would be [Airdrops.io](https://airdrops.io/). Good luck! Let me know if you wind up collecting any good coins you find there. (I'll also update you whether I ever get my @energi airdrop.)<br><br>Speaking of airdrops, did you STEEM holders claim your [PALcoin](https://steem-engine.com) tokens?

* **Coinbase Earn** - An easy way to earn a little free crypto in coins already out on exchanges is to sign up for a free [Coinbase](https://coinbase.com/) account, then do the mini trainings on various coins. Currently there are 6 there: XLM, ZEC, BAT, EOS, 0x, DAI. You typically get $10 worth of whatever coin you're learning about just by watching a 2 minute video then answering one easy multiple choice question about it. With [XLM](https://coinbase.com/earn/xlm/invite/t1qsvkrm) you can earn up to $50 worth by having friends/family do the mini training after signing up with your referral link (like that one.) I definitely recommend you go ahead and collect your free crypto, while also learning about some cool coins you may actually want to invest in longterm.

![money-2696228_1280.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXZYS7QVfUr3kmoA7Xrw3cqucRDXDfrDjAf8zrPgMV6jK/money-2696228_1280.jpg)
[Source](https://pixabay.com/photos/money-profit-finance-business-2696228/)

## Passive Crypto Accumulation Methods

<br>
* **Staking** - This is another fence straddler between passive/active. It depends on what coin you're talking about. But again, this is a list of my personal favorites, and I don't like having to do anything actively when it comes to tech. So for me, the idea is to have a wallet I'm already using simply to store my coins, that simply sends me more coins periodically.<br><br>One good coin for this is VET with it's [VeForge](https://vault.veforge.com/) wallet. (Binance also pays out VET's VTHOR tokens.) Then of course there is also ONT, NEO and others I don't own. If you're okay with a little activity, like having to sync to the full blockchain and keep your wallet running in the background (or on a separate Raspberry Pi), then there's NEBL and I think also NAV that are pretty straightforward and decent coins. I'm guessing there are also many others that fall into this category.<br><br>Note that I'm not including masternodes anywhere in this post. That's because that's way too technical for me to do myself, and I don't trust anyone enough to let them host my masternode for me. If I was going to do one though, it would probably be PIVX or Energi. How about you?

* **Saving** - This is where you trust a 3rd party to hold your coins on a lending or margin platform and they pay you some of the profit they make off them by giving you more coins. Things you're looking for here are a good rate of return (% rates) and security of how your coins are stored. <br><br>My top picks are [Celsius.Network](https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/16551462d3)  and [BlockFi](https://blockfi.com/?ref=b269b2b3). Both give annual returns of about 5-6% compounded daily, and both have security and reputation I find "good enough" for me to put a small portion of my coins in for the chance for nice savings account returns on some of my crypto. <br><br>Celsius accepts the widest variety of coins and BlockFi accepts BTC, ETH and GUSD (Gemini Dollar). BlockFi is affiliate with the Gemini Exchange, who guarantees funds and provides security: "Your cryptoassets are stored with a depository trust and licensed custodian, Gemini....The majority of assets stored with Gemini are held in cold storage." Security at Celsius is largely from the way each saver's crypto is held in a different cold storage wallet at BitGo, a top line crypto security provider. Since there is no commingling of funds, there is no big central moneypot to hack and steal. With both I feel my money is pretty safe.<br><br><strike>Minimum investments at BlockFi are 0.5 BTC or 25 ETH.</strike>There used to be a minimum investment at BlockFi, but that was recently removed, so now you can deposit any amount of coins. At Celsius there has always been no minimum. You can save any amount you want with either of them now.<br><br>Lastly, there's this little thing called KYC/AML they both do before you can deposit funds. <br><br>Since this is a completely passive method of gaining significant amounts of crypto ongoingly, and I certainly don't intend to sell ALL my BTC within the next decade, this method is my top pick for ways to accumulate free crypto. <br><br>You can also try margin lending on a site like Poloniex. I didn't bother with that one because it's just too active a method for me. You have to issue your own contracts with specific terms, renew them, etc. But I think you may earn higher returns if you're willing to set up 2 day lending over and over, or set it to auto renew and hope what worked before keeps working for you. Just not for me. If I was going to do something like that, I'd probably just delegate STEEM Power.<br><br>Another option is to use one of these sites to take out a loan secured by your crypto instead of earning interest. You can then use the cash for other investments or living expenses, including buying more crypto. The same sites that offer savings accounts also offer loans, as well as Nexo, Compound, SALT and many others. I have no experience with any of those last ones, but have done a crypto backed loan at one of the two I recommend you check out above, and used the proceeds to buy more crypto. Smooth process. Took about a day.<br><br>Final thought on this, I edited this to update the info on BlockFi and also to remove a recommendation for Ledn. Not only did Ledn do a bait-n-switch on me, promising interest rates of 5.1% only to a couple months later say it was dropping to just 3.5% in a couple months, but they also say that you can withdraw your original deposit without even needing KYC. What they don't say is that the button to withdraw is greyed out until you do KYC. They also don't list anywhere that you'll have to go through a rather lengthy process that includes a video call to withdraw your money if you have 1 BTC or more, and that even then it will take over a day to actually get your money out. I've done withdrawals with both Celsius and BlockFi and each had me my money within a few hours of my requesting it, with the entire process automated. No video calls needing to be scheduled. Five days into trying to withdraw just what I invested with Ledn and still no crypto. I doubt that's what you're looking for, so removed the recommendation above.

## In Summary

<br>I'm sure there are more ways to acquire free crypto, but if you do just this much, you'll be well on your way to a future of financial freedom. 

Please share your absolute favorite way to gain crypto in the comments. Is it one of the ones I shared above, or something else entirely?

By the way, your affiliate links for what you share are okay with me, so long as you're only sharing one or two you genuinely love, not filling my comment section with spam. I'm one of those people who will actually use an absolute stranger's affiliate link if I can find one instead of just signing up directly for something, even if I find it directly. "Spread the wealth," is my way of thinking. 

![cash-1169650_1280.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQtpzTEr62XDYELjjViCCap2kgsVJVgk2GyBv3dor11Si/cash-1169650_1280.jpg)
[Source](https://pixabay.com/illustrations/cash-money-wealth-assets-1169650/)

*Edited September 2019 to update recommendations after more experience with them.*