Now, what makes Ethereum different from other software platforms is that it is blockchain-based. Blockchain means a record of data stored on networks of computers, there are 3 pillars of the blockchain that make it unique — decentralization, transparency and immutability. Cryptopneurs join this network for business and personal interests.

Besides personal and business use, other reasons to not only earn free Ethereum but also learn how to trade ETH actively include the following:

  • You can commit to smart contracts, which are highly safe and auditable
  • Short selling advantages allow you to sell even during a low market period
  • Leverage margin in trading Ethereum is high, as a result, you also enjoy high profits from trades.
  • Just like Bitcoin, Ethereum has tremendous potential. Perhaps with all the scalabilities, eventually, everybody will see how feasible the Ethereum network is becoming. For example, just 3 years ago the worth was 160 in dollars and now we are almost at 190+.

The crypto space is such that people can determine whether or not to invest in coins, and would also be able to make any money out of it. If you're searching for easy yet legal methods of earning free Ethereum, that wouldn't involve sticking your neck out at great danger, then here are our top picks.

1. Ethereum Faucets

An Ethereum faucet is a website or app, where you can register a wallet address, solve a captcha and get rewarded for that. Free-Ethereum io is an example of a program where you can earn reasonably in a matter of hours.

These websites use the opportunity to boost their traffic and make more money. Ethereum faucets usually attract high traction, allowing them to advertise for bigger companies. It’s also a medium to get word out on such companies, and even Ethereum in general.

In short, they also get rewarded for the tasks that you do for them. Here are some other examples of popular Ethereum faucets (apart from free-Ethereum io):

Although it doesn’t necessarily make you enough to make a good profit, Ethereum faucets are a fair way to know how trading works without the risk.

How Do Ethereum Faucets Work?

First, note that these websites are full of ads — scrolling, banner ads, and every possible type. Basically, you earn to view the promotions and in turn, they’re hoping that you will like one, click and buy it. Good thing, you don’t have to.

When you complete the task and earn free Ethereum, they immediately go to your micro wallet. An Ethereum micro wallet allows you to collect small amounts of coins before transferring to your main wallet.

Micro wallets are automatically created when someone registers an account with the Ethereum Platform. They also have a threshold of coins they can hold, and when the limit is reached, ether will be paid out to the user’s main wallet.

However, if you decide to link your macro wallet directly to the faucet, it would eventually cancel out ether earned from the faucet.

One ad view is paid about 0000012 ETH.

Pros

  • Faucets have bots that simplify the process of earning
  • Since there’s a threshold of limits, you can retrieve your coins at any point
  • Sites provide micro wallets for securing free ether.

Cons

  • Long periods of testing
  • The amount of earned coins is insignificant
  • The gains are more to the faucets than the players

If you’re also interested in bitcoin faucets, and especially in how to select, check out this article on 8 Best Bitcoin Faucets in 2020: How to.

2. Ethereum Mining

Ethereum is the most important and profitable coin when it comes to mining. Mining Ethereum came by when the blockchain was launched in 2016. Today, crypto mining has seen a major resurgence, and a lot of that is thanks to Ethereum. So, with the help of a PC, a wallet and software, you can mine free Ethereum.

Mining is a process carried out by miners (blockchain participants), which involves fact-checking transactions done within the network. The first miner to successfully complete the check of a new block earns free coins.

The only thing is that mining calculations are complex and enormous, so it has to be done using a computer. The machine solves these numbers in the form of hashes.

How Does Ethereum Mining Work?

Create a wallet and save the Keystore file of your wallet. Examples of Ethereum wallets could be:

Download appropriate software to start mining Ethereum. Here some good mining programs you can use.

Join a mining pool. Then configure and connect your software to the mining pool. Finally, double-check your settings and Start mining Ethereum.

Pros

  • You can have fun with games while mining
  • Anyone one can mine Ethereum. You only require the right computational power.

Cons

  • Graphic cards and mining rigs are expensive
  • The most you can earn is $3/day
  • You will need mining, which strips you of your sole independence.
  • There’s uncertainty around the value of mining and whether it will continue to be profitable for miners.
  • Availability on every part of the globe is also questionable.

3. Ethereum Airdrops

An airdrop is a blockchain project created to give out free tokens — literally. But why do blockchain projects give away free cryptocurrencies? It appears it is to create a community of fidelity by rewarding the loyalty of the users.

How Do Airdrops Work?

There are two types; the first is when users hold the cryptocurrency at one point in time. They take a snapshot of the whole blockchain (ledger) to know who’s holding and give away a relative amount of crypto compared to what they hold.

The second type of airdrops is used to replace ICOs. In 2017, Google and Facebook banned cryptocurrency ads, especially Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). One year after, the ban was lifted for only the U.S and Japan countries. ICOs were used to launch crypto projects through ads. But because the ads have been banned from these social sites, people are paid money to spread the word.

That means you don’t have to hold any cryptocurrency to get some tokens. You just have to achieve the steps that airdrops require. For instance, follow them on Twitter.

Where can you find airdrops? On the Remitano Airdrop Program. You may also use airdrop.io to see all the past, current and future blockchain projects.

Pros

  • Free money for users
  • Increases publicity for businesses that host them
  • The tasks are simple

Cons

  • Airdrop scams have been reported, which is why it was banned initially.
  • Some blockchain project offers are meagre, almost worthless.
  • It’s mostly about promotions

4. Ethereum Buy and Sell

Ethereum buy and sell also means trading the digital asset. You can purchase ether and trade it for a higher value when the market favours you most. There is not much difference between trading ETH and other cryptocurrencies. You need to have coins, a wallet and a platform to trade on.

How Does Ethereum Trading Work?

Create an account and wallet on a crypto trading website. Buy ether from any trusted seller Platforms typically protect both the buyer and seller to make sure none is cheated out of the deal. After the buy, you may want to hold the coins in your wallet for a period of time when the value will appreciate. If the set rate is good, you can sell back your ether to another user.

Pros

  • Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency as per market capitalization. This means there’s a great potential for continued growth.
  • The Ethereum network has clear regulations and policies governing it.
  • Trading ether is easy and swift as opposed to mining
  • You can trade without revealing personal information such as name. It is freely accessible from any part of the world.

Cons

Volatility which causes ether to fluctuate in price.
Scams and account hacks happen.

5. Interest Accounts (Staking and Lending)

Interest means the cost of borrowing something, in this case, ether. If you are already trading, you can convert your portfolio to an interest account. Staking and lending is a rather fancy name for it. The crypto trading company you have an account with can borrow from you and repay the given amount with more earning interest.

How Do Ethereum Lending and Staking Work?

You have to be one of the users of the platform you’re lending to. In addition, you need to have a substantial amount in your account to stake. If you have both, you may then request to deposit some of your ether to the company’s account.

The procedure involves agreeing to some terms stipulated by the site. A particular length of time is chosen for when the earned interest and original amount will be repaid. Here are a few finance
platforms you can work with.

Pros

  • Easy access to platforms
  • Your money is safe
  • Interest accounts are free to open
  • If you stake a fee, your interest will be high too.
  • There a contract binding both ends of the commitment

Cons

  • Companies set minimum deposit that must be met before the process commences
  • Lock-in periods during which you can use your funds exist
  • You may get stranded in case of when you need emergency money

6. Crypto Bounties

Named after bounties of Wild West, this method of earning free Ethereum encourages crypto community members with various tasks. The designated tasks are rewarded with tokens after their completion.

Anyone can partake in bounty programs to earn Ethereum for free. Participants help organizations with different tasks on marketing. This is usually done before the token sale ends.

How Do Crypto Bounties Work?

Usually, there’s a pool of tokens for bounties from various projects and a certain percentage of that is allocated for each type of campaign. There are two ways they can split it up; one is the more old-school approach and this is fiat fee where there is a set amount awarded for each listed task.

The second is something called stakes, which is way better and more utilized in recent months. You will get assigned stakes based on the quality and type of completed work and your rewards. See below the steps to earn free Ethereum coins on bounties.

  • Browse BitcoinTalk for available bounties.
  • Pick a project you like
  • Choose and execute bounty tasks
  • Record your activity
  • Check results on a spreadsheet
  • Join Telegram channel for announcements
  • Receive tokens

Here are a variety of tasks to do and what the scores depend on.

  • BitcoinTalk signature: Need to be a certain member level
  • Blog post or video: Quality plus number of views
  • Translation: Website, ANN thread, whitepaper
  • Social media: If you’re an influencer
  • Bug bounty
  • Coding experts

Pros

  • Bounty programs also work like ICOs and it means their upfront cost is low.
  • There’s a wide range of audience to participate in the campaigns. The group interaction keeps warm in this way.
  • Word of mouth usually spreads fastest for bounties as they are mostly hosted on social media.

Cons

  • It’s suspected that Telegram members of most bounty programs are bots.
  • The level of abandonment is on the rise. This situation implies that bounty hunters are only after selfish gain and once done, dump the entire thing.
  • Coin rewards are low
  • Since content bounties pay more, people are distracted from the main goal and end up creating poor quality content.

7. Referral and Affiliate Commissions

If you’re good at persuading, you can earn free Ethereum by referring people to crypto websites. Referral programs use links to reach new members. When friends or family sign up and trade on these sites, you receive a percentage from it.

How Do Referral Programs Work?

Basically, you invite people using a referral link and when they register and commence trading activities on the site, a percentage of it will be deposited into your account. The requirements vary across crypto trading platforms.

Pros

  • You can invite as many people as possible. That will mean continuous revenue for you
  • Friends, family and people you know can facilitate the process
  • This method is one of the most genuine

Cons

The requirements may be tedious to fulfil
You can use only one referral link for one person.

Check how the referral program at Remitano works and also join to earn 40% lifetime commission on all referrals.

1. Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Both Use Cases of Blockchain Technology ― with Different Purposes

Bitcoin is a digital currency that people can use as a form of payment to send to and from each other or hold as a store of value. Ethereum is a programmable blockchain that people can build software on, to create valuable products and services or just for the fun of it.

Ether (or ETH) is the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency. It operates similarly to bitcoin. Ether was designed as a form of payment to fuel the Ethereum network. This means anyone who wants to build an Ethereum network has to pay for the computing power and space required, using ether.

Two other differences between ether and bitcoin are that bitcoin has a fixed supply and halving events while ether currently does not. Fixed supplies and halving events protect cryptocurrencies from inflation. In a cap on the supply of ether may or may not be implemented in the future.

If you want more information about bitcoin halving, read our article on Bitcoin 2020 Halving (or Halvening) Explained!.

2. Gas is the Pricing Unit of Ether

The amount of ether required for network fees is determined by a built-in pricing system known as gas. Gas considers the bandwidth and space requirements as well as the computational difficulty in each transaction to calculate the amount of fees it will take to complete.

The term gas was created to differentiate the cost of performing transactions on the Ethereum network from the actual value of the ether currency. So, when executing transactions on Ethereum, you will see gas prices in GWEI, which stands for Giga Way.

Giga way which is also referred to as nano ether represents a fraction of ether to the 9th power. You can think of a Giga way to ether as pennies to the USD.

Therefore, 1 GWEI = 0.000000001.

3. Ethereum Still Has Some Scalability Problems

In December 2017, near the top of the last bull run, Cryptokittes, a decentralized application, clocked the Ethereum blockchain and made it painfully clear that Ethereum was not ready for mainstream adoption.


Source: Medium

At the time, Crypto Kitties, which made up 20% of all Ethereum computational power, also revealed flaws with cryptocurrency Ethereum. The problem was scalability ― it wasn’t able to scale and the transaction fees went really up.

After the facts let loose, the developers at Ethereum realized they needed to get their game up. They needed to improve scalability, lower transaction fees, increase the decentralization and security of the network, which was not quantum-proof.

Ethereum 2.0 was founded after this period and was announced in the middle of 2019. The new version will be rolled out in 2020.

Here is a video by Chico Crypto explaining Ethereum’ Scaling problems.

Conclusion

If free Ethereum seems like something you will be interested in getting, then this review is a good starting point. However, take note that although earning free Ethereum adds to what you already have, the total gain might be insignificant. For more information on how to earn and trade other coins, browse Remitano Forum.