As a content creator, I’m constantly seeking new ways to earn income using my skills and talents. There are countless ways to do so, and cryptocurrencies have emerged in recent years to open up new doors for all kinds of content creators.

As a writer, I’ve discovered many ways to earn income online. Many of them involve clients. But what if I want to earn income from my writing without clients? That narrows the possibilities. Even more, if I want to earn cryptocurrency income using my writing skills, that limits the possibilities even more. The same applies to other creators, from photographers to musicians, video content creators to graphic artists, and woodworkers to (fill in the blank).

If you’ve ever wondered how you might earn additional income from your content creation skills without searching for new clients, here are six platforms where online content creators can earn crypto hassle-free.

Crypto Wallets and Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Earning cryptocurrency isn’t hard. You do need a digital wallet. While crypto wallet recommendations go beyond the purview of this article, Finder has listed 15 of the best crypto wallets for 2024. I agree with their conclusion that Exodus is the best wallet for beginners, and Metamask is the best place to start for browser wallets. Beyond that, I’ll recommend that you do your own research.

That said, the platforms I recommend for earning crypto all have built-in wallets. You can start there, but if you want to cash out your earnings, you’ll want a crypto wallet you control so that you have someplace to send your earnings and keep them secure.

On the other hand, you may want to convert your earned crypto into bitcoin, or another cryptocurrency. For that, you’ll want to find an exchange. Again, do your research. For U.S. content creators, Coinbase is a great place to start even though their conversion fees are a bit on the high side. Nerdwallet recommends Coinbase for beginners. Again, I agree, but I’d prefer Gemini and Kraken over Robinhood and Fidelity. That’s just my preference.

Without further ado, please allow me to share the top six social media platforms where content creators can earn cryptocurrency in 2024.

6 Platforms Where Content Creators Can Earn Crypto

Below are my recommended Web3 social media platforms for earning cryptocurrency, no matter which kind of content creator you happen to be.

• Hive — Jason Glynn gives a decent introduction to Hive in his article “4 And a Half Ways to Earn Crypto By Writing”. However, he doesn’t tell you that earning crypto is just one of the benefits of using Hive. The platform’s underlying technology also provides content creators with censorship resistance, increased privacy protection, and heightened security for digital assets and identities. It is the most decentralized Web3 social media platform I’ve seen. You can learn more about these concepts from my book Web3 Social: How Creators Are Changing The World Wide Web (And You Can Too!). Bonus Tip: Sign up through InLeo using your X or Google account. All of the content you post through InLeo will earn you Hive and LEO for extra rewards-earning power.
• Odysee — Odysee is to video creators what Hive is to writers and bloggers (Hive, by the way, also has front-end dapps [decentralized applications] for video creators). The difference is that you can sync your YouTube account to Odysee and earn LBRY Credits for any views your videos receive. Like Hive, Odysee sits on its own blockchain meaning you don’t have to worry about paying enormous fees for transferring your crypto as you do with some other platforms.
• Paragraph — Paragraph is a Web3 newsletter platform that takes the idea of Substack, marries it to the idea of Patreon, and gives content creators expansive ways to earn income through a powerful newsletter/blog combination. There are several ways to earn through Paragraph. You can sell your content as NFTs and choose from several blockchains on which to conduct your transactions. These include Polygon, Optimism, Base, and Zora. You can also sell subscriptions and put some of your content behind a paywall. Not only can you take payments in crypto, but you can also take payments in real-world currencies, which expands your ability to earn income by making payments flexible for your audience. Paragraph allows you to segment your audience into communities. You’ll have to connect your Web3 wallet to Paragraph. While there are other Web3 wallets, the one I use is MetaMask.
• Audius — Like video creators, musicians have their own Web3 social media platform, and they can earn cryptocurrencies for selling their music. Musicians on Audius earn the $AUDIO token. Billed as a decentralized music streaming service, participants can earn crypto by uploading their music or by running a node on the network. You can even do both.
• Zirkels — I’ve tried most of the platforms on this list. Audius and Zirkels are the two exceptions. But I feel obligated to add Zirkels to the list because it is essentially a beefed up Hive. At least in terms of web design. While Hive is nothing to look at, Zirkels is quite attractive. Users earn $DESO because it sits on the Deso blockchain whereas Hive has its own. Creators earn rewards when other users appreciate their content. Creators can also put some of their content behind a paywall and specify a minimum reward for users to be able to access it. One unique aspect to Zirkels (and the entire Deso blockchain) is that creators get their own unique creator coin. Creators can create content and specify a minimum amount of their creator coin for other users to hold before they can access that content. Another unique aspect to Zirkels is that creators can create content vaults where they can hide any type of content including audio files, images, videos, PDFs, and more. These vaults can be used to make personalized offers accessible by NFT, a designated dollar amount in creator coins, or a designated DAO coin. Zirkels is like an OnlyFans for the crypto community.
• gFam — The thing I like about gFam is that content creators earn XRP through tips from other users on the platform. Creators can also hide content behind a paywall and designate a minimum amount of XRP to gain access to that content. I earned $300 worth of XRP in one year that is now worth more than $1,000. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Well, folks, that’s my list of six Web3 social media platforms where content creators can earn cryptocurrency. Don’t delay. Pick one to try and start earning crypto before the next bull market hits.

Are you a writer interested in writing a book but don’t know where to start? Follow me on X. Then send me a DM, let me know you read this article on Hive, and tell me in one sentence what your book is about.

First published in the EmergeTech Publication on Medium. Image from Unsplash.