I’ll keep this as short, simple, and informative as I can. Making money in Web3 is super simple: you just have to look in the right places and be willing to learn.
The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now.
Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within the first three productive years, you can get very wealthy.
It’s much more important today to be able to become an expert in a brand-new field in nine to twelve months than to have studied the “right” thing a long time ago.
When I say learn, I mean you should sit down, dedicate hours of focus, maybe incorporate a note taking session, and actually master the fundamentals in that space. Like you did in university. In fact, I have a belief that the whole point of uni is to actually teach you how to approach learning, so you can learn anything for the rest of your lives, in the academic career you picked.
My story: When the Blockchain bubble blew in 2021, my friends and I challenged ourselves to learn Blockchain development as a Christmas challenge. I learned how Blockchains worked, picked up Solidity, and by January 2022, I was ready for the Web3 job market. I transitioned careers to Web3 fully, and went on to make the most money I have ever made in a single year. In my End of Year Review for 2022, I mentioned how my expenses for only one account grossed over 8 million Naira. And then, I still had the impostor syndrome because I just entered the Blockchain space.
When it comes to making money, you need what is called leverage. Leverage is essentially the ability to generate income or influence without directly trading your own time. It's about maximizing your potential and productivity in a way that yields greater returns.
Now, there are two types of leverage: permissioned leverage and permissionless leverage. Permissioned leverage is the one that requires other people’s input directly. Permissionless leverage is the one that does not require other people’s input — or even if it does, it would be indirectly.
For people starting a new business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media). Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge with accountability and show resulting good judgment. Labor means people working for you. It’s the oldest and most fought-over form of leverage. Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it.
Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you.
Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.
Now, you’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. In the traditional sense, owning stocks is equity. But in blockchain/Web3, owning and/or staking a token is equity.
The easiest and cheapest way to own a token is to get incentives for doing something, and receiving the incentive as token airdrops. And how do you get incentives as airdrops?
Popular Ethereum L2s release tokens in airdrops. When they do, they want to give it out to people who will hold on to it for the long term. This is so that their token (stock) does not perform badly. The tend to give it out to blockchain developers who contributed to the project or Ethereum itself, and they also give to content creators a.k.a influencers on Twitter (now X) and video makers on YouTube.
If you are able to leverage any of these two (code or media), and you play the game right, you will definitely make so much. Note that “media” can simply be about writing Twitter threads or posts and mentioning/tagging the right accounts. If it scores enough visibility, you will definitely be rewarded. Likewise, contributing code to the base blockchain or the project itself will definitely result in a reward.
Show up every day. You cannot be unlucky for 365 days in a row. One day will be your lucky day, and you have to show up that day.
I always comfort myself with this whenever I want to try something new and it dreads me: “the fact that it worked for somebody else, is enough proof that it will work for me.” Following exactly the same steps as someone, in order to achieve success is not bad. You just have to do it smartly.
First things first, look for someone it works for and emulate them. If you can’t go closer to them to ask questions, just research everything you can about them.
Next, build your account followers to something considerable. You can easily do this by buying an older account, doing giveaways if you have enough capital, or posting/engaging on very sensible content that will attract more of the kind of people you need.
Finally, garner enough knowledge and begin immediately.
First things first, learn to code. You can look for someone who does so, and emulate them by learning what tools/languages they know and use for blockchain development. You can find a roadmap here. On Ethereum for example, you must know how to write JavaScript/TypeScript and Solidity.
Next, practice. You can practice by building random projects first, but also consider making money as you practice by:
Asides blockchain development, another way you can leverage code to make money in Web3 is to learn data analytics. Dune Analytics is an in-demand skill in Web3 till date. You can extend this by learning how oracles work, learning how to fetch and organize tokenomics data. Lots of Web3 companies have positions for software engineers in market data teams.
Check out Web3 freelancing sites like Dework for open bounties. Then check which bounty description sounds up your street.
If you have any more questions, you can ask them in the comments, and I will try to answer to the best of my ability.
