Learn how to earn Bitcoin for freelance work, using a variety of cryptocurrency-focused platforms and traditional ones.
It’s easier than ever now to get paid and spend in internet money.
Bitcoin is changing the freelancer's ways
We are witnessing the disruption of the traditional employer/employee relationships. For many, the days of showing up at an office building and working for a single company in a cubicle have completely disappeared. This is especially relevant now and the trend will continue.
Members of the thriving gig economy can now move to places with better quality of life or even travel the world while working. They typically earn US Dollars or Euros, which is inherently better than their national currency in terms of maintaining purchasing power. But with the rise in capital controls and financial surveillance, many freelancers are opting to be paid in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is cheaper, faster than traditional methods for international payments, works globally, permissionless, and often trades at a premium. Bitrefill offers a nice way of paying for your everyday needs without using banks, but how do you fix the earning in crypto part?
Cryptocurrency-focused Freelance sites
These are sites which allow you to register either as an employer looking for a freelancer, or a freelancer looking for gigs.
As a general rule, cryptocurrency-oriented freelancing sites do not have as much activity as traditional freelancing sites, but usually their fees are much cheaper. This may not always be true, however, so it is important to research the specific freelance sites you plan on using.
- r/Jobs4Bitcoins — Reddit’s Jobs4Bitcoins is one of the most active places to find work paid in BTC.
- Cryptogrind — One of the oldest and most popular Bitcoin freelancer sites.
- Coinality — Coinality is another solid place to find freelance and part/full time work that pays in Bitcoin.
- WorkingforBitcoins — Just like the title of the website says, you can find jobs that pay in BTC.
- Freelanceforcoins — Freelanceforcoins is another freelance site that pays in Bitcoin, but also allows payment in any altcoin.
- Bitfortip — Bitfortip is a little different than the other sites we have listed so far, it focuses on micro-tasks, rather than freelance work, and pays in Bitcoin or Nano.
- CryptoJobs — CryptoJobs offers freelance and fulltime work for many different positions in the Blockchain industry.
- BitGigs — BitGigs is a very active and popular Bitcoin freelance job board, with a wide range of listings.
- Blocklancer — Blocklancer is a freelance job site that pays in Ethereum.
- CryptoJobsList — Is another very active jobs site that offers freelance, and part/full time positions in the Blockchain industry.
- Bitcoinerjobs — Same, but for Bitcoin-focused companies.
Furthermore, there are a number of microtasking sites, which allow you to earn Satoshis for completing minitasks on Lightning Network.
- Stakwork is a website which allows you to pay or earn Sats instantly for completing a variety of simple tasks. You can also crowdsource an army of micro workers if you need something completed.
- Paid is an app for iOS and Android which lets users get paid in Sats for completing simple tasks.
- MicroLancer is a P2P task listing board where you can post a job you want done or apply to complete one of the published.
- EarnSats allows you get paid in BTC via the Lighting network for taking online surveys.
- Sats for likes is an app that lets you get paid in Sats for providing social media likes on popular platforms like Twitter and Youtube.
Video hosting site LBRY, lets content creators earn by views, for the content they post, similar to Youtube’s model, except LBRY’s compensation for creators is a much higher percentage.
Many popular Youtubers have also begun to create LBRY profiles, because Youtube keeps reducing the amount paid to content creators, while also increasing the level of censorship. LBRY is a blockchain-based video platform which aims to give more freedom to content creators.
The Brave browser is another way to receive some additional income, Brave pays users to view advertising content, and compensates them in BAT. While you won’t get rich doing this, you can earn a little extra pocket money on the side, every month.
PublishOx is a blogging site which gives content creators the ability to get paid in cryptocurrency for publishing blog content, they can also earn by reading and watching content.
Hive is another blogging platform which lets content creators get paid for posting blog content. Hive was born a few months ago, in the heat of the Justin Sun controversy over Tron’s acquisition of Steemit, another blogging platform, which pays content creators in cryptocurrency.
Justin Sun tried to control Steemit’s validator node block producers, centralizing the power dynamic of the platform, which was extremely unpopular with the platform’s users. The community forked Steem’s code base, as a response, and launched Hive, which has gathered much of the Steemit community’s former support and user base.
Getting paid in Bitcoin on traditional freelancer sites with Bitwage
Traditional freelancing platforms, unlike their crypto counterparts, are not niche and have a huge amount of job listings and opportunities.
The only disadvantages are that they don’t pay in Bitcoin, and that there is a lot more competition for the jobs that are posted, as there are a lot more freelancers submitting proposals.
There are literally hundreds of traditional freelancing sites, many of them industry specific, so I will defer to this excellent article by Ryan Robinson, “78 Best Freelance Jobs Websites to Get Remote Freelance Work (Fast) in 2020”, to point you in the right direction. There are simply too many to list here.
Freelance sites like Guru, Upwork, Fiverr, Flexjobs, and SolidGigs, all pay wages in fiat currency, which could take a while to clear and it gets expensive after they take their fees. This is where Bitcoin truly shines as a method of payment for freelancers.
The workaround to the limitations of traditional freelancing sites that pay in fiat, is to use Bitwage. This company makes Bitcoin, for both employers and employees, simple and painless.
Bitwage is a Bitcoin-centric payroll and HR service which allows employers and workers to pay or be paid in Bitcoin. You can elect to receive your pay 100% in Bitcoin, or Bitwage can give you a portion of your wages in fiat currency, and a portion of your wages in Bitcoin.
They will give you a US bank account, which you can use to receive payments from your freelance platform’s fiat compensation system. Once the money hits your Bitwage account, they will instantly convert some or all of it to BTC and send it directly to your wallet. The coolest thing is that since your employer only sees a US bank account, they don’t even have to know you’re receiving your payment in Bitcoin.
This solution not only works for freelancers, but for people who have any sort of traditional employment. You can simply change your direct deposit info or deposit your checks directly into your Bitwage account and be paid in Bitcoin.
Once you’ve received your pay in BTC, you can use Bitrefill to buy thousands of gift cards and mobile refills, or purchase a Balance card and lock in your purchasing power to avoid volatility, for future purchases.
Buying Bitcoin yourself
If you can get a bank account in the country of your employer, or you get paid in an international e-wallet like Paypal, Payoneer, Skrill, Zelle, etc that doesn't work in your country, you can buy bitcoin on Hodlhodl, Bisq (without identity verification) or on your least-evil local regulated exchange.
That way you can then convert at real market rate to you local currency or to Bitrefill Gift Cards and Phone refills.
Need to pick a Bitcoin wallet? start here for Bitcoin only or here for multicoin.
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