Ok; that sounds enticing and it's not an April fools day prank. Don't get too excited though as we're not talking about Beeple here (at least not yet). If you're pressed for time, you can skip this intro & background material and scroll down to the how-to section for part 1. What follows is some background information regarding my crypto challenge.
A couple of weeks back I set myself a challenge. To gain some crypto-currency for free. We're not talking about life-changing sums of money but as a casual gamer I started to take an interest in crypto games where players could win prizes which can be traded outside the games. I remember a scene in 'Ready Player One' where the hero receives new hardware as a reward for playing and I wanted to know how far we are from that becoming a reality. Imagine if all the PS5's and Xbox X's had gone directly to players instead of scalpers last Christmas.
Some of these games require you to already have NFT's (digital collectibles) or crypto-currencies before you can even try out the game. I found one where you needed three NFT's which were priced at around $800 each. That's a big entry barrier for most players. There are other games which are less expensive so my challenge was to overcome the first step of being excluded from the system (yes it would be easy to buy crypto but not for kids who won't get debit or credit cards until they're 18 and I'm being frugal and don't forget the challenge!). I guess this is why Wade Watts has to be either 18 or 19 in Ready Player One, to get around the question of how did he get started on a path towards ultimate victory? How else could he have bought the game or any in-game items if he was legally unable to pay for any of it.
I spent a couple of weeks doing research at this point and much of what I found is useless. Yes, technically you can mine bitcoin on a gameboy but I urge you not to get your hopes up. Likewise if you have an old laptop or desktop, disabling anti-virus or system protections to install some command-line miner is probably not going to be worth the time it takes to set-up. In the early days of crypto, this might have been profitable but in recent times mining rewards are lower. If you think your old computer has any chance of competing with a warehouse full of custom-built crypto-miners then reality will kick-in about the same time the next electricity bill arrives. If however your reason for mining is to produce heat to keep a building warm over winter then maybe it does make sense if that heat is generated by mining crypto.
It's also worth keeping in mind that some crypto-currencies (like ethereum) are moving away from Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining. This has upset a lot of miners who have invested heavily into planet-trashing, resource-burning hardware over the last decade who really don't want their ability to earn to be diminished by a switch to Proof-of-Stake however it's hard to imagine how any crypto will survive while being attacked by mainstream financial institutions on one side and the green movement on the other. People are already talking about the amount of energy used for crypto-mining and this has put some artists off turning their work into NFT's. Artists are also concerned that the fees charged for selling their work as an NFT could be as much as 80% of the sale price. This may just be because NFT-mania has increased the value of Etherium. It's enlightening to see this system from both sides. If miners earnings are going down and artists are being stung with charges, who is benefitting from this (looks like the exchanges to me but I could be wrong).
There are plenty of sites where you can now create your NFT's but you don't pay anything until they sell. If this is something you are interested in, I suggest you also check out this video about some of the legal issues which can arise with NFT's.
How-to get free (sort of) crypto
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So my challenge was to use my electricity and available hardware to generate some crypto by earning it for free (apart from the electricity). So let's get on with it.
The first thing to do is install Brave browser. This is a custom build of Chromium which is actually pretty decent. I don't earn anything from that link but I might consider becoming a contributor (meaning I could earn tips) once I've received my first pay-out. Brave also has a shields setting which blocks a lot of trackers while browsing but can be quickly turned off if it breaks a website. It occasionally launches a fairly non-invasive notification for products or services you might be interested in. Brave share the revenue earned from these adverts with the users and pay-out when you've earned 25 bat (basic attention tokens - roughly worth $1 at present). While the original purpose might have been to get web-surfers to contribute a regular donation to content-creators, I imagine most users turn off the auto-contribute feature (see below) and then allow the ad revenue to build up instead.
At around 1 bat per week, it's going to take a while to earn but tomorrows post will deliver another crypto booster to use with Brave. I should point out here that if you are using an iPad/iPhone or Mac, you can find a version of Brave in the app-store however recent changes made by Apple now stop you from being able to earn with this. There was some sort of one-off transfer process when the changes occurred but I think the iOS versions should make all the details completely clear on the start-up page. I uninstalled it from my iPad when I found out about this because of the apparent lack of transparency. I do miss using it but now I've got used to the idea of my attention having value, I want to replace my old iPad rather than keep using Brave on it.
I hope you've enjoyed my rant / information. Tomorrow I will post how to obtain some free NFT's and tokens then turn them into real money. For today, try out your new browser and learn all there is to learn about BAT.
The usual disclaimer:
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I'm not a financial advisor, legal or medical expert, I only state my own opinions and blog about what works for me personally. Nothing in this article should be construed as financial, legal or medical advice and you should ask local professional advisors before investing time, money or any other resources into anything mentioned.
