How to Earn Money with Crypto
AI summary
The article explores the diverse ways to earn money with crypto in 2025, highlighting options beyond traditional investing such as staking, lending, yield farming, play-to-earn gaming, airdrops, affiliate programs, content creation, and trading. It emphasizes balancing passive and active income strategies according to your risk tolerance and goals, while prioritizing security and ease of use—particularly through trusted hardware wallets like Tangem. The key takeaway is that diversification and careful selection of earning methods can help you grow your crypto holdings safely and sustainably.
Crypto offers far more than just buying and waiting for the price to rise. The ecosystem now includes staking, lending, play-to-earn gaming, airdrops, and content creation, all designed to help you generate income while supporting blockchain growth. These methods create rewards and new tokens and fuel the broader crypto economy.
Earning with crypto today is less about chasing quick profits and more about choosing reliable strategies. While risks like volatility and platform security still exist, safer tools and clearer opportunities make starting easier. The key is finding the method that matches your goals and risk tolerance.
7 ways to earn money in crypto
1. Staking: passive income with proof-of-stake
Staking is a great way to make your crypto work for you instead of just sitting idle in your wallet. When you're part of a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network, you can lock up your coins to help validate transactions and keep the blockchain secure. As a thank you, the network rewards you with new tokens, kind of like earning interest on your savings.
Of course, like any investment, staking has its risks. The value of your coins can go down, network conditions can change, and some platforms may have lock-up periods where you can’t access your funds right away. But on the bright side, staking provides predictable rewards, supports eco-friendly blockchain participation, and offers a lovely opportunity to grow your holdings passively.
With Tangem Wallet, staking is even simpler. Open the app, pick your token, delegate to a validator, and track your real-time earnings. It's safe, transparent, and fully self-custodial.
2. Yield farming and liquidity mining
Yield farming and liquidity mining allow you to earn by providing liquidity to decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. When you deposit your tokens into a liquidity pool, you enable trading and lending on protocols like Uniswap and Curve. In exchange, the protocol rewards you with a share of the transaction fees or native governance tokens.
In 2025, average annual percentage yields (APYs) vary widely depending on the platform and token pair. Stablecoin pools often generate 5–10% APY, while riskier pairs can exceed 20% or more. These rewards look attractive, but they come with higher risks.
The main challenges include gas fees, impermanent loss, and complex strategies. High Ethereum fees can eat into profits unless you use layer-2 solutions or cheaper blockchains like Arbitrum, Optimism, or Solana. Impermanent loss happens when token prices move apart, reducing the value of your liquidity share. Complexity also remains a barrier; many strategies require active monitoring and rebalancing.
3. Crypto Lending Platforms
Crypto lending lets you earn interest by lending your assets to other traders and investors. You deposit your coins into a lending platform, and borrowers pay you interest while putting up collateral to secure the loan. This system helps both sides; you earn yield, and they access liquidity without selling their crypto.
Popular decentralized platforms in 2025 include Aave, while centralized services like Binance Earn remain widely used for simplicity. Interest rates usually range between 3% and 12% annually, depending on the coin and market demand. Stablecoins like USDC and USDT often generate the most consistent returns.
The biggest risks to keep in mind are liquidation, platform issues, and changes in regulations. If a borrower’s collateral decreases in value, the platform might liquidate it, but unpredictable volatility could still lead to losses. Centralized lenders also face counterparty risk. If the company runs into trouble or collapses, your funds could be affected. That’s why many investors feel more comfortable with non-custodial lending through DeFi protocols, where they maintain more control over their assets.
4. Play-to-Earn and Web3 Gaming
Play-to-earn (P2E) has evolved significantly from its initial days of simply distributing token rewards. Web3 gaming shifted its focus toward ownership, utility, and real-world value, moving beyond just grinding for coins. Today, players can genuinely own in-game assets, trade NFTs, and earn crypto through skill-based gameplay.
Games like Pixels, Axie Infinity, and Illuvium remain popular, while new titles continue to innovate in Web3 gaming. Many of these games include DeFi features, enabling players to stake in-game assets, rent NFTs, or join profit-sharing guilds.
The key to making a profit in P2E isn’t just playing extensively— it’s about strategic choices. Selecting games with sustainable economies, investing early in valuable NFTs, and diversifying investments across multiple titles can turn earnings into profits or help avoid losses. For casual players, P2E offers a fun way to enjoy games while earning extra income. For dedicated gamers, it presents a new digital career path full of exciting opportunities.
5. Yapping
Yapping (or Yap-to-Earn) is a fun way for users to earn by sharing insights, commentary, and discussions about crypto projects on platforms like X (Twitter). They earn tokens, points, or airdrops for their engaging content, which adds value to the community. This fits within the broader InfoFi (Information Finance) scene, where information, attention, and reputation are treated as valuable assets. In InfoFi, contributions like data analysis, content creation, prediction markets, and reputation signals are all tokenized and can be monetized.
The great thing about this model is that it allows people to earn without needing much capital up front. Instead of staking or trading, users can benefit from their knowledge, communication skills, and ability to connect with others. Projects also gain because InfoFi aligns community incentives with their desire for more visibility and meaningful discussion.
Additionally, this approach can help reduce the noise and spam in crypto communities by rewarding thoughtful and valuable contributions. For early users, building a reputation and climbing leaderboards can lead to both immediate rewards and future opportunities.
Of course, there are some challenges and risks. When reward pools are fixed, the payouts can become smaller as more people join, often favoring top creators. If systems aren't well-designed, they might encourage spam or shallow content, which goes against the goal of promoting quality. Platforms also have control over the rules, which can change unexpectedly, making contributors vulnerable. Sustainability is another concern—like many crypto trends, InfoFi will need to develop transparent economics and strong anti-spam measures to keep growing and thriving.
6. Affiliate & Referral Programs
Affiliate and referral programs offer simple entry points into crypto earnings. Affiliates promote products through blogs, videos, or social media, while referrals focus on direct invites to friends or personal networks. Both models allow you to earn commissions or bonuses when new users sign up or make a purchase.
7. Trading and Arbitrage
Trading remains one of the most recognized methods of earning in crypto. Short-term traders aim to profit from price movements through day trading, while swing traders hold positions for weeks or months to ride larger market trends. Both approaches demand technical analysis, discipline, and risk management. Arbitrage provides another chance by taking advantage of price discrepancies between exchanges. For example, if Bitcoin is slightly higher on one exchange than another, traders can buy low and sell high quickly. However, fierce competition and transaction fees often reduce profits. Due to the high-risk, high-reward nature of active trading, only a small part of your portfolio should be allocated to it. For most investors, options like staking, referrals, or freelancing are more sustainable ways to earn money without facing extreme volatility.
What’s the Best Way to Earn Money with Crypto in 2025?
Passive options like staking, lending, and referral programs provide a reliable and low-maintenance way to earn, while active strategies such as trading, yield farming, and play-to-earn games can bring in bigger rewards but with more risk. Finding the right balance allows you to grow your holdings steadily while exploring opportunities for larger gains. Remember, security and ease of use should always come first.
A trusted hardware wallet like Tangem helps both beginners and seasoned users protect their assets effortlessly, giving easy access to staking, referrals, and other earning options. With its simple, seedless backup, Tangem makes starting your crypto journey safe and straightforward, helping you build long-term income streams with confidence.
Disclaimer: The information provided here is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, investment, or trading advice. Always do your own research (DYOR) and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk, and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose.
