35 Best Side Hustle Ideas To Start & Make Daily Passive Income

There’s a lot of different digital products that you could be creating out there. Think about what people compliment you on and might be excited to give you money for.

There are a lot of places like Gumroad, Etsy, Appsumo and other places that you can actually sell and promote your product actively.

For example, simply go to Craigslist and under the for sale section, you’ll see a word free.

Click on that and see a list of items that people are giving away.

Most of the time it’s junk and if you look long enough, eventually, you’ll find something that’s worth money that the owners just don’t have time to properly sell.

This maybe something that the right person would pay money for with proper advertising.

So if you have the ability to pick up these items, move and store them then wait for the right buyer to come along, you could make some pretty decent money.

Worst case even if no one buys it, you can just repost it back on craigslist for free and let someone else take care of it.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Try to find products that are undervalued or that you can fix and sell online for profit.

If you just put in the work and the effort, you can find really good deals. It’s just the amount of time you’re willing to put in that matters.

If you want a guaranteed passive income side hustle without all the responsibilities of managing a side hustle, you should consider getting a part-time job.

Honestly, working for someone else gives you guaranteed income, pre-determined hours, and zero risk of not getting paid unless your boss is horrible.

If you want to earn a little extra money, part-time work is generally the first thing that comes to mind.

It doesn’t need to be glamorous and it doesn’t have to pay you an exorbitant amount of money.

But if you’re willing to do some extra work for a local business, or do some work after normal hours, evenings, or on weekends, then look for potential options within your city.

Check Craigslist, LinkedIn, monster.com, Facebook (Meta), or any other job listing sites to see what’s available.

Jobs to do may include driving for Door Dash, delivering groceries, or washing dishes at a local restaurant.

There’s no shame doing an honest day’s work. This is good for anyone looking to make some extra money with absolutely zero risk.

I actually got my side hustle business financed through my consultant day job. The big thing to really think about is what skill you have in your day job.

Whatever it is you have some skill in your day job, think about what you can use to transfer that to some type of side hustle income.

Is there an event that you would create for yourself that you would pay money for?

You might be surprised a lot of the other people that would pay money for that event.

Now how do you sell tickets for it? There’s sites like Eventbrite and Hopkin where you could post these events.

If you’re trying to start a side hustle of events and any other type of business, create a really quick google spreadsheet outlining your costs.

These may include ticket prices, pay for speakers, food, registration fees, and how much do you actually need to make. Aim for break even so that everything else is going to be profit.

As long as you work on something for 12 months, you’ll make a thousand dollars a month.

This is a great way to make leveraged income, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to begin with.

You just need to spend time putting together a solid playlist in a specific genre, gain followers, and figure out a way to make money from it.

There seems to be two main ways of doing this. I prefer the second, but you may think differently.

• The first way is to charge up-and-coming artists a fee for getting featured on your playlist.

When new artists are trying to break into the scene, they’re interested in one main thing, Spotify streams.

This is why an engaged playlist is so powerful, as once you’ve built it, you can supply that artist with a predictable amount of monthly streams, and charge accordingly.

You can even have a different pricing structure depending on how close to the top you place their song.

This is certainly achievable, and I could see you making thousands a month doing it.

However, here are the issues. It’s against Spotify’s terms of service, and not very passive, as you have to be in contact with the artists to sell song placements.

• The second way is to start a Patreon.

An artist can sign up to a monthly membership in return for the chance to submit their music to your playlist.

This is a lot more passive, as the money would be coming in automatically on a monthly basis, and all you have to do is review music and update the playlist.

You could easily charge $5 a month, and if you get 1000 artists signed up, you could be making 5,000 per month.

This way also feels less dishonest, as you can actually pick songs you enjoy rather than taking money to put bad music on your playlist.

Merch by Amazon is an on-demand T-shirt printing service. It allows sellers to create and list T-shirt designs on Amazon, for free.

There are no upfront costs, and you get paid royalties when a customer buys your shirt.

All you need to do is upload your designs, choose the colors, and set a price, then Amazon will take care of the rest.

Just think about it. Just remember to avoid any copyrighted content.

The key to a successful vending machine income is to find great locations.

Once you’ve identified a few different spots and agreed a deal with the owner, you can then secure a machine that fits the customer’s needs.

There are lots of used vending machines going for low prices online, which would be ideal if you’re just starting out.

You could even get a loan, and spread the payments, using the profits.

When picking things to put into the machines, it’s a good idea to think about the demand in the specific location, and slowly test out different ideas until you have the perfect mix.

After this, it’s just a case of hiring staff and expanding your empire so you’re able to be as hands-off as possible.

SaaS stands for software as a service. The beauty of this idea is that they often use a subscription-based pricing model, so instead of a customer paying once for your software, they pay on an ongoing basis.

This can be monthly or annually. This is great, as it gives you a predictable leveraged income each and every month, and the opportunity for explosive nonlinear growth.

In order to achieve success, you first need to pick the people your software is going to serve.

There are two main categories, businesses or consumers.

Serving other businesses is often seen as the least risky, as you can make more money per client than if you’re selling to everyday people.

Once you’ve got that nailed down, you need to develop a solution for a problem.

Now comes a hard question. How do you actually finance this thing?

The internet is definitely the place to make lots of money, as its growth has been exponential. I think there is a huge gap in the market for digital products.

Just think about it. Everyone is talking about eCommerce and drop-shipping.

But far less are actually selling quality digital products which have the benefit of never running out of stock, have no shipping costs, as it’s all done via the internet.

If Instagram templates aren’t for you, then you can make YouTube banners, sell stock footage, eBooks, games, email templates, or even online courses.

Now, I hold my hands up. This isn’t exactly unique, but I couldn’t leave it out. This is the truest form of passive income you will ever get.

I’ve been investing in different assets for years, such as stocks, crypto, and real estate. I like to see this as a way of really multiplying my money.

I don’t go for crazy profits, as that can often lead to people losing everything. As soon as you can, make sure to open up a tax advantage account.

This is a stocks and shares ISA in the UK, and a Roth IRA in the USA.

Your aim should be to max out the amount of money you’re able to contribute as the gains are completely tax free.

A good thing to remember is to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. I know it’s a cliché saying, but it’s so true.

There’s no doubt that stocks can make you wealthy. You can’t be a lazy stock investor or you’re going to lose.

You’re not going to find the Tesla or the Draft King because you didn’t do the upfront work.

To be successful, start buying both growth and dividend stocks. I’d recommend you just dip your toes in first.

You don’t need large amounts of money to get started and invest.

You can literally build a small portfolio for a hundred, or two hundred dollars. Start investing and you can find a whole new way of making money.

The quickest way to build passive income that almost everyone can begin implementing immediately is dividend income.

Of course you might be thinking to yourself that dividend income isn’t a side hustle but is just passive income. Here’s how this works.

Anytime you go and buy a stock, what you’re really buying into is a small piece of ownership in the company.

When that company posts a profit, sometimes they’ll pay you back a portion of what they make in the form of a dividend.

For example, it’s reported that the average dividend in the financial sector is 4.1 percent, utility companies pay about 3.9 percent, and others like consumer goods, health care, and industrial pay about 2.2 percent.

That means if you invest a hundred dollars into one of those stocks, you could make anywhere from two to four dollars a month, quarterly, or yearly for doing absolutely nothing.

The other passive income source that goes hand in hand with stocks is capital gains. This is when you sell your investment like a dividend stock for a profit.

The amount you pay tax on is what’s known as your capital gains.

For example, if you buy a stock for ten dollars and you sell it for 25 dollars, that means you’ll pay tax on the 15 dollars of the profit and that will be reported to the IRS as another source of income.

This is another way that you can make money by investing in stocks because not all stocks pay dividends.

Many stocks are what’s known as a growth stock because they don’t pay out dividends.

The dividend gets reinvested back into the company hence pushing up the stock price even higher.

It would be like buying a hundred dollar stock and instead of it paying you a five percent dividend, the stock price goes up by five percent a year.

At the end of the day it’s almost the exact same thing except you’re not going to be taxed on the value of the stock going up until you sell.

This is unlike dividend stocks where you’ll have to pay tax each and every time you get paid dividends depending on how much money you make.

This is one of the most under utilized passive income source that enough people don’t take advantage of.

Think about this and ask yourself, what do you do between the hours of 6 pm and midnight every single night?

That is six hours a day or almost another entire full work day on top of a normal work day that most people just completely let go to waste.

If you want to get ahead or you want to make more money, use this time wisely and make it count.

Doing something worthwhile in your spare time will put you so much further ahead in the future.

You’ll get some really good experience and what do you have to lose besides probably watching Netflix.

I know what you’re going to say that having an online business is too hard.

Even if you love your nine-to-five job, you should still be starting a side hustle.

It doesn’t really matter, starting an online business made me a millionaire and it’s making many people a lot of money.

It doesn’t matter what you’re into or what your passion is, you can monetize it online.

If it’s photography, you can sell your photos on Etsy and Shutterstock. If you like guitar or music, you can teach that online.

It doesn’t have to earn you millions of dollars but I don’t think anyone would complain about a decent side income.

This can potentially make you a lot of money depending on how involved you want to be.

It’s entirely possible to make money with absolutely nothing out of pocket even if you don’t own your own property. If you buy a property, rent it out to make a monthly profit.

For people just starting out without a ton of cash to buy a home, you could make quite a lot of money by renting out an unused bedroom, or some extra storage space like a garage.

You can put up the extra space on Airbnb to make some extra money just for taking on the occasional guest.

And best of all, you could use this exact same strategy to offset your own cost of living.

I think if you have an interest in working with other people or living with a roommate, you can rent out unused space within your living quarters.

Just be aware that it’s not going to be 100% passive income source and there will probably be a learning curve until you make more consistent income.

Investing in real estate is a little hard to get into because even though you can borrow 80% of the money you need for a house, you still have to have a deposit saved up to buy it.

Nevertheless, it is an asset that can make you rich and most people who are rich will own some form of real estate. You can get started from the bottom with no money.

The real estate agent side of things also looks like a lot of fun. Being an agent gives you inside knowledge and you get to know the true value of each house.

You also get to know exactly what to look for on a property, and how to get a deal done. So maybe you could consider becoming an agent before buying a property.

Oil, water, gold are all scarce resources since we have a limited amount of them on the planet.

If you become an owner of something that has a finite amount of it, it normally becomes a valuable investment.

Certain types of commodities also get big tax breaks. For example, oil tangible cost for drilling is a hundred percent deductible.

Bitcoin is a currency but it’s also a commodity at the same time.

If bitcoin continues to grow its influence and more people adopt it’s use, there is bound to be a lot of money to be made.

Bitcoin is also very risky compared to the other assets.

The concierge is a person that can recommend restaurants, things to do, and where to get that stain on your suit removed before the big meeting.

This idea hasn’t made it online yet. Yeah, there are social platforms and review sites but nothing with that personalized service you expect from a concierge.

This would be a perfect income stream. From how to use certain websites, to deleting browser history.

Getting started with this one is as easy as going to sites like Upwork and searching for jobs around online research or web searching.

You’ll find thousands of projects paying between $17 to 75 dollars an hour and up.

Making more money and making this as passive as possible is going to come from automating some of your process and the services.

With the pandemic lockdowns, need for online social reaction became a top priority. And even afterwards, most people spend their social lives online.

So combining this need for social groups with the value of sharing important information, you get what’s called a mastermind group.

This is a group between 10 to 20 people that meet online regularly to discuss a topic and share ideas.

And it can be big money for group organizers through platforms like tribe and mighty networks.

You can invite people to join your group for regular online meetings, private chats, and even upload courses to sell.

Group members pay between $50 to $500 and up to be part of these masterminds.

And the best thing is, it can be totally passive and something you can grow into a six-figure business.

That’s because while you may be setting these up and managing the invites, you don’t have to participate.

Simply designate one or two people from each group to be discussion leaders and share a cut of the fees with them for their time, and you’ve got a totally passive income business.

When I started my blogs in 2014, it took six months to make any money at all. And that was a big fat check for all of $56.

Yeah, I was living on ramen noodles but I put in the time to grow that income up to $2,000 a month after the first year.

$4,000 a month after the second year adding different income streams then to $10,000 and $20,000 a month after starting the YouTube channel all the way up to averaging $48,000 a month last year.

But I got to tell you it was far from passive. In fact, I worked hard for it.

But you know what started as a side hustle and hope for passive income grew into something I really enjoy and a business that can run itself.

At this point, I could step away from the business maybe just spend five hours a week from the beach somewhere to record videos and still make $10,000 or $20,000 a month.

Imagine waking up and seeing you’ve made a hundred sales overnight. Let me tell you it’s the best feeling in the world.

I used to have my phone maker sound every time I made a sale but now because I sell so much stuff, I had to turn it off because my phone just wouldn’t stop.

E-commerce is basically a shop but online. This can be done in so many ways like selling on third-party platforms like eBay or Amazon or even creating your very own store using tools like Shopify and WordPress.

When it comes to e-commerce, it’s all about picking your niche. I see a lot of people creating stores selling any old rubbish.

But the issue is it doesn’t create a very good experience for your customers.

So ask yourself what are you interested in? It could be gaming items, toys, garden accessories, or just about anything.

These days, I always tell myself as long as there’s a demand, there’s money to be made.

Now that social media is becoming so popular, you can achieve some real scale.

People are becoming multi-millionaires left right and center from selling products online.

I believe as long as you have the right products at the right price, there’s sweet profit to be made.

For instance, Etsy has grown into one of the world’s largest online marketplaces and its uniqueness from amazon is that personalized craft space.

This means it gets targeted traffic from people ready to buy.

My friend started her shop in February of 2021 and in just nine months, she had already made over a thousand sales.

She says she’s selling between 75 to 100 items a month and an average of six dollars each.

How does making an extra $600 a month in your spare time sound?

To get started, build your presence on Instagram and Pinterest rather than some of these other social media sites.

These two are much more search focused so your posts are going to be seen by people searching for those topics rather than just your friends and family like on Facebook.

Focusing your time sharing your images on these two platforms it’s going to help you build that customer base faster.

Another tip to get started is just to browse Etsy for ideas on what you can sell. Start with a hobby or something you really enjoy doing. This is how she got started.

Turning an Etsy shop into a source of passive income really depends on the product you sell. But you can automate that process on anything selling digital products.

So something people can download is going to be the ultimate in passive income because Etsy is going to automatically send your customers that download when they make a purchase.

I made almost four thousand dollars profit on one of these in the past setting it up in less than 40 hours over a month’s time.

I had to include it here because I want to give you enough time to get yours set up before the next holiday shopping season.

First you’re going to pick a theme for your bundle. Something like personal finance investing crafts or whatever topic you want.

Then you put together a list of all the courses, books, and online products you find in that category in this list.

You’re going to want contact information, about the seller price information, and any discounts already offered.

And maybe a bullet list of what people get from that product.

Then with your list in hand and the details planned out, you start contacting all the sellers, the owners of those products, and everyone by email or social media to see if they want to be involved.

They can contribute a product to the bundle or just help promote it with an affiliate link or both.

You want to know who’s involved and how many contacts they have on social media and email.

This is because you can use this to get those bigger creators on board.

You can tell them that you’ve got contributors with a combined 500,000 email list.

This is really what enabled me to go full time on my online business.

It was the fact that I was able to get self-publishing income up to a thousand dollars or more a month within the first year.

That really helped pay the bills while I built the rest of these income sources.

Adding just a few books a year, I was able to grow that income to three thousand dollars a month within a few years.

And this can be any book fiction or non-fiction. It can be an experience in your life, how to do something, or just a story you’ve always wanted to share.

Everyone has a book in them because you have your own unique set of experiences and talents that I guarantee you someone else wants to read about.

And this is a lot easier than you might imagine. To get you started for a nonfiction book, start with what you want people to be able to do or learn.

Then break it down into 10 to 15 tasks working backwards to that goal.

Each one of those goals is going to be a chapter in your book so you do the same within each chapter.

Break it down into a few tasks and instructions in each then you focus on just one chapter a week.

Selling printable is one of the easiest I’ve found to make hundreds a month.

Now this maybe similar to the idea of self-publishing but instead it’s just a one or a two page checklist that you’re going to sell through a blog or social media.

These are so much easier because you can put one together in less than a day compared to several months writing a book.

Plus they’re typically less expensive so it’s a lower commitment for buyers.

These can be as simple as a quick checklist maybe a recipe or something people need help with like optimizing their home internet security.

Affiliate marketing is whereby your primary source of income is going to be mentioning products and courses, and getting a commission of the sales.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time creating your own products or courses.

You just partner with other businesses and the products that you believe in to promote.

This can also be a great passive income business because once you’ve got traffic, a percentage of those visitors are going to click through your links and buy something.

You can make thousands a month on very little work. Sign up for what’s called an affiliate network.

This is just a website that connects people to affiliate partnerships.

In those affiliate networks like Share a Sale or CJ affiliates, you’ll sign up to affiliate programs which are just individual companies that want you to promote their products.

You’ll get a special link that you can use whenever you talk about a product.

If someone clicks on that link from your blog, the company is going to track that person and give you a commission if they buy the product.

For anybody who doesn’t have extra money but wants to make money without having to spend money, I have the perfect solution for you.

That would be selling stuff you already own.

I understand this requires that you actually have to own something to begin with to sell it.

But almost all of us have something we do not use that’s collecting dust in the closet that could be sold for money on eBay, Facebook marketplace, or on Craigslist.

It is easy to list whatever you have. List it up for auction and have the buyer cover shipping and your total time commitment to simply taking pictures and writing a description of what you have listed.

Wait for it to sell and worst case even if it doesn’t sell, you’re not going to lose any money. You still get to keep what you already have.

The downside is that it’s not a sustainable side hustle and there’s only so much you could sell before eventually, you’re living in an empty apartment sleeping on $100 bills.

If you still want to make some passive income without a lot of work, consider joining focus groups.

This is something I did throughout my early 20s when I had the extra time.

For anyone not familiar with what this is or how it works, companies want your opinion on their upcoming products or services.

They want to know exactly what the consumer wants and rely on focus groups to get unbiased feedback on what they have to offer.

They can then make product adjustments accordingly and the payout for these usually ranges depending on how long it’s for, whether or not it’s online or in person, or how niche of the demographic they are looking for.

This one would have to be my favorite. Credit card churning is the practice in which you sign up for a credit card and then meet the minimum spend to get the signup bonus.

Payout ranges anywhere from $100 to $300 in the low end, all the way up to $1500 or more for some of the high-end luxury credit cards.

But regardless, doing this takes next to no time.

In the long-term, it can help boost your credit score. Who doesn’t like getting free stuff?

The easiest way to do this is with super simple websites like Nerd wallet.

You will get updated lists every single week on the latest credit card offers ranging from $200 back with Wells Fargo, to $150,000 bonus points on Marriott, to thousands of dollars worth of free travel on the AmEx platinum.

All you need to do is to put your normal everyday spending on the credit card and pay it off in full by the end of the month.

You then get paid free money for items you would have been purchasing anyway.

This is something that I’ve been doing now for over 10 years and it’s allowed me to travel anywhere I want to go for free.

It’s a side hustle that can easily make you anywhere from $100 to $500 a month for probably 10 to 30 minutes worth of work.

The thing is if you’re good at something or if you have a unique skill like calculus, or building websites, you can learn how to turn that into a business.

For example, if you’re good at playing the piano, look into giving piano lessons. If you’re good at math, English, science, or history look into becoming a tutor.

Think about what you have to offer and reach out to other people who could use those services.

This is something that anybody can start with no money out of pocket. The only cost is your time.

Using social media is a skill a lot of millennials and gen z’s overlook. After all, it seems like everyone can use it.

However, older generations really struggle, I mean have you ever looked at a business’s Instagram page and thought it didn’t represent them in the best light?

Many business owners still haven’t woken up to the online world.

And that’s where you can step in as a social media manager by helping a company unlock its online potential.

So your services are very valuable to the right people. Once you position your offer like this, you’ll be able to charge much higher prices.

A great way to get in the door is starting a few Instagram theme pages around different topics such as cats, cars or even finance.

You can then spend a few months growing those and seeing if you enjoy the process.

The next step is to reach out to creators and businesses using your pages as examples of your work.

Having solid case studies that prove your credibility can make hiring you a simple decision.

As this side hustle gets more well known, you’re going to face some serious competition.

A great way to stand out is to create bespoke marketing strategies for each client.

The aim is to make your clients feel special which then creates strong long-term loyalty which keeps them coming back again and again.

But how likely is this side hustle to make me a millionaire? Well, all the side hustles in this post have the potential to make you a millionaire.

However, some are more scalable than others due to a mixture of factors such as demand, time and money.

There is definitely a high demand for social media managers as it’s no secret that influencers are more popular than ever and brands are rushing to work with them.

It’s also something you can start with very little money because if you live anywhere in the world, then you probably already have a smartphone.

The beauty of this side hustle is that you only have to become good at one skill, selling.

I believe almost anyone can learn how to sell effectively if they put in the time and effort.

Sales isn’t seen as the most glamorous side hustle in the world as many people think of those slimy used car salesmen. However, those are just the bad ones.

The good ones make the process enjoyable for their customers to be honest.

If you master sales, then you’ll be able to make good money no matter how the economy is doing.

Companies will always need your help to sell their products. Sales people are always the last ones to get fired because they are so essential.

The best way to get started is to approach different businesses that sell high value physical or digital products, and offer to sell their products in return for a commission.

This means they have little to no risk because if you don’t sell anything, they don’t have to pay you.

But on the other hand, this gives you an almost unlimited upside potential.

Real estate is such a powerful way to make money. However, to buy real estate you need a lot of money to get started.

That’s why Airbnb arbitrage is a great way to make money from real estate without even owning a property.

Just imagine you rent a house for one thousand five hundred dollars per month.

If you then put that house on Airbnb for a hundred and fifty dollars per day, then you could pay off your rent in just ten days.

That would lead you with nearly three thousand dollars in profit at the end of the month.

Of course there are other expenses that come with running these Airbnb's like potential maintenance.

However, it’s still possible to make a healthy profit. The good news is that Airbnb arbitrage is allowed but it does depend on the short-term rental regulations, where you live, and having the landlord’s permission.

You may be thinking why would a landlord agree to do this when they could just do it themselves?

Influencers also have something TV can’t replicate that is human connection.

We’re even now seeing huge businesses being built off the back of YouTube success.

A study actually recently found that more kids now dream of being professional Youtubers rather than astronauts.

That’s a crazy statistic and you’d probably think this means competition is high.

However, out of the people that actually start a YouTube channel, only a few really understand the algorithm. That’s easy for me to say.

I would say the key piece of advice to use on YouTube is to keep your content focused on any topics that fit into your mission.

It’s all about putting your audience first and providing them with valuable content without asking for much in return.

The education system is broken with more people than ever turning to the internet for affordable training from business coaches to personal trainers.

If you know something valuable, then you can now monetize your knowledge like never before.

This can be sold online in a variety of different ways such as eBooks, consultation, zoom calls, memberships, and even dare I say it online courses.

Of course there are good and bad online teachers and not everyone is in it for the right reasons.

However, if someone is promising to teach an actual skill, then I don’t have an issue with it.

Social media is on the rise and influencers are making millions. 80 percent of the world’s population already has a smartphone.

Well, what if I told you you didn’t need to be an influencer or even reveal your face to the general public? You just need to be the bridge.

It makes perfect sense that brands are utilizing influencer marketing to get customers and make sales. The big problem is influencers can’t reach brands.

Brands can’t reach influencers and it’s an endless cycle of people not communicating or even worse, not knowing their worth. This is where your social media agency comes in.

You can start off doing all this by yourself by signing influencers to your agency and connecting them with the brands, working as the middleman in exchange for a commission.

Of course you will need communication, sales, and I.T skills. But I see this industry really taking off as we enter into a more interconnected world.

Now I know you might be thinking this seems very complicated and hard to get started. And to be honest, you’re probably right.

Getting rich isn’t easy and it takes a lot of work. But a little bit of advice from me, if you see big potential in working with particular clients, then you could always suggest a time period where you work for free.

In this time, it’s really important to prove your worth and make yourself indispensable.

A lot of people are against the idea of working for free and believe that you should always be paid at least a little bit, I disagree.

If you set your starting price too low, then it’s hard to increase.

If you make it clear that you’re working for free to prove your worth, then you’re in a much stronger position for negotiation.

I think it’s about time that we talk about the holy grail of building wealth, investing, and financial independence, and that would be passive income but with a slight twist.

Most of us already know how to make passive income with stocks, dividends, Reits, and real estate.

But very few people realize that they can make passive income with cryptocurrency, and even fewer people realize just how much money they could make.

Let’s go over a few of the ways that you could begin earning passive income with cryptocurrency as a complete beginner.

The entire cryptocurrency space is full of a whole bunch of sketchy people. I have zero financial interest in any of these companies or strategies that I’m talking about.

The easiest and most straightforward way of making passive income with cryptocurrencies is through what’s called an interest bearing account.

Interest Bearing Account

This is likely the quickest way anyone could get started.

Just like you could go to the bank to deposit your money and get a lovely half a percent interest rate, you could deposit your cryptocurrency throughout several exchanges and earn a preset return depending on the amount you hold.

And believe it or not, the return is actually pretty good. Blockfi pays as high as four and a half percent interest on bitcoin, five percent on Ethereum and nine percent on usdc.

When you deposit money in one of these platforms, they’re going to take that money and then lend it to retail and institutional investors at a higher interest rate than they pay you.

It’s really no different than me saying give me your money, I’ll pay you a five percent interest rate, and then I could lend that money to somebody else at eight percent while I keep the difference as profit.

In the event something happens, there’s a chance your money could all be gone.

There’s also a chance that the entire cryptocurrency market could simply collapse.

This is a risk that I’ve accepted with less than eight percent of my entire net worth.

But with risk comes rewards. Personally, I think most platforms are relatively safe but nothing is risk-free.

Staking

The second option for earning passive income with cryptocurrency is what’s known as staking.

Since there’s no central authority overseeing all cryptocurrency activity, these transactions are processed in two ways.

One is proof of work and the second is proof of stake. Proof of work relies on computing power to solve complex algorithmic problems that reward users with cryptocurrency.

These are typically the intensive mining rigs you see set up in large warehouses, people’s basements, or even in a Tesla.

And yes, people could make a lot of money doing this depending on the price increases, and the cost of energy.

The problem with proof-of-work is that it’s energy-intensive and it could take a lot of money to start up.

And as algorithms get more and more difficult to solve, it could take longer and longer to get paid.

So that is what takes us to proof of stake. Since there’s no central authority overseeing every transaction, there needs to be checks and balances put in place to make sure everything is working as it should.

And as a way for no one person to have central authority over the entire system, users could stake their cryptocurrency to receive rewards without having to do the computing power to mine the cryptocurrency itself by doing this.

Transactions are validated by users who deposit their cryptocurrency on the network and in a way, the amount you stake translates into the amount of vote you have on the blockchain.

When the majority of those votes all move in the same direction, the transaction is confirmed and those who stake their coins get the reward.

In this case, the more money you stake, the higher the chances of validating the next transaction, and the higher the chances you’ll get paid.

You could also join what’s called the staking pool which combines forces, and then shares the collective reward of placing more money within the network.

In the most simple form, just imagine staking as though you’re putting money in a CD for 1 to 24 months, and in return for that, you get a slightly higher yield.

The easiest way for most beginners to get started is by simply signing up for a reputable exchange like FTX, Coinbase, Binance, or variety of other options.

Compare the differences between the interest rates, up period, and the amount you want to invest, and then just follow their instructions.

If you want to take this a step further, you could also become what’s called a validator which is where you stake your coins directly on the blockchain.

However, doing this usually requires much more money to be invested and you have to run your internet 24/7.

So for beginners, it’s usually a little bit more advanced but the payouts are much higher.

Now the downside is that there are risks. Namely, that you’ll hold your money in the blockchain for sometimes an indefinite period of time, during which the market could fall and you’ll be unable to sell.

Overall, though it could be a great way to earn passive income with cryptocurrency that you were planning to hold for the long term anyway, as long as you don’t need to sell anytime soon.

Lending Cryptocurrency

The third way of making passive income would be to lend your cryptocurrency to someone else who pays you back with interest over a set period of time.

But unlike other loans that are unsecured, the borrower risks nothing in the event they don’t pay it back.

Besides ruining their credit score, cryptocurrency lending is sometimes backed by the borrower’s own cryptocurrency.

So in the event they fall behind, you could get some or all of your money back. It would be no different than me wanting to borrow ten thousand dollars from you.

But as a cause in the agreement in order to do that, I need to lock away ten thousand dollars of my own bitcoin just in case something goes wrong, and you need to get your money back.

Because these loans are built around smart contracts, the blockchain takes care of all the terms for you.

So the process is entirely automated and you never have to worry about trying to track somebody down for payment.

In this case, the more supply there is, the more people want to lend out their cryptocurrency, the lower the interest rate you’ll get paid.

The less supply there is and the more people want to borrow cryptocurrency, the higher the interest rate you’ll get paid.

The risk, however, is that borrowing and leverage only works so well until it doesn’t.

And in the event of a market crash, things could go south pretty quickly.

Also as far as I’m aware, there’s nothing stopping anybody from doing what’s called an infinite leveraged loop.

This is where they deposit a thousand dollars in Ethereum, borrow $800 worth of tether, convert that into Ethereum put that back on the platform.

Then borrow another $640 of tether and then repeat this process a dozen times, until eventually they have five thousand dollars worth of purchasing power with a deposit of only a thousand dollars.

I personally think that cryptocurrency leverage is going to be an issue at some point.

This is especially if the market sees a large sell-off that sparks all these leveraged positions to be sold off. And that causes the price to drop even further.

• The first truth is passive income is definitely not a get rich quick scheme.

So just knuckle down and work hard at it. Many people go into it with completely the wrong mindset.

It’s probably a lot to do with the word passive, as it does kind of sound a bit like, “You haven’t got to do any work.”

Setting up any passive income will require large amounts of time or money investment upfront. And this may not pay off for years down the line.

The magic of passive income is huge, delight compensation. So the real difference between a job and a passive income is that instead of getting paid for your time, you’re getting paid for the value that you provide.

The internet has made this really all possible as you’re able to help lots and lots of people, all with the same information, over and over again.

But going into this with a more long-term attitude, you will have a much better chance of success.

You’ll be doing the proper research, you’ll be doing all the planning, and learning all the skills that you need.

It may look easy and quick from the outside but behind the scenes is where the real work happens.

You don’t see all the late nights, sacrifices, struggles, criticism, self-doubts and the risks that are taken.

• The second truth is passive income isn’t permanent.

I see a lot of people, they do all the hard work and they build up a great passive income source, and then they never spend any time on it ever again.

And they wonder why a few years later down the road it’s completely dried up.

One of my friends was making millions selling eBooks on Facebook adverts.

But the adverts got more and more and more expensive. And his profits started to totally disappear.

Unfortunately, he was too busy focusing on other things and before he knew it, his passive income are being wiped right out.

And this was costing him more money to sell the books than he was making in the first place.

This really isn’t a set it and forget it method. If you don’t keep feeding the fire with the wood, then eventually it’s going to sizzle out and it’s going to leave you left out in the cold.

YouTube viewers expect new content, real estate needs maintaining and the stock market can crash and online courses, well, they expect support.

Once you set up your passive income, you change from being a builder to a supervisor.

Although this involves lot less work, it still requires some work and also some of your time.

Something I have to look out for in my businesses is, of course, the competition.

And I wouldn’t be able to do that passively. They’ll always be trying to catch me up.

And if you decide to do nothing, then you’re gonna be overtaken and you’re gonna be left behind.

So don’t believe all the gurus out there that say you’ll never have to work again.

Nothing is permanent. However, with a few hours of work a week, you are able to maintain it for as long as possible.

• The third truth about passive income is school will never teach you passive income.

Now, this one might sound a lot like a conspiracy theory, but hear me out.

Our entire school system is focused on just one way of making money.

The whole point of exams in college is to sort people into jobs. There are three different ways to make money.

• You’ve got linear income, otherwise known as a normal job.

• You’ve got leveraged income, which is when you own the business and people work for you.

• And finally, there’s passive income, where your time or your money works for you without you having to be there all the time.

Now, things are changing at such a fast pace and the schools can’t keep up with everything.

Once those textbooks are printed, that information is just (blows) out of date.

The government also doesn’t want too many people becoming good with their money.

This is because less people will waste their money on unnecessary items and the whole system could just collapse overnight.

When I was being taught the basics of math by my teacher, I was bored out of my skull.

In fact, there was never any mention of money related subjects such as investing, credit scores, debt, or wealth creation, which is a little bit crazy.

I had been really interested in the subject and motivated to learn more if they’d just shown me how it would relate to my future wealth.

The internet has really become the best place to learn about personal finance and passive income.

But that also comes with its own risks. You have to really do your background checks on whoever’s providing you with the information.

A big thing I would check is how they make their income. Lots of people online actually make passive income by teaching you how to make it.

That’s a bit like saying to me, “I’ll teach you how to make $1, just give me two.”