How to Buy Bitcoin Cheap

All the Ways to Get Bitcoin for Little to Nothing

Hindsight really is 20/20. Everybody wishes they had bought bitcoin before the price shot up to $20,000. After all, today it seems so expensive — thousands of dollars for one bitcoin?!

It’s important to remember though, that one bitcoin is made up of one hundred million units called “satoshis.” So if you are wanting to buy bitcoin don't worry, you don't have to buy a full one ever!

Even so, not everybody can to dedicate even a little cash for buying bitcoin. That being said, we’ve compiled the different ways to obtain bitcoin for cheap or even free.

Lolli

Lolli is a great way to earn free bitcoin - it is the only option that doesn’t require any time, money, or effort outside your normal routine. Lolli is partnered with hundreds of merchants, including online travel agent Expedia, grocery store chain Safeway, and clothing stores like Macy’s. A complete list of Lolli partners is available here.

Using Lolli is simple — you just download the extension in your browser and create an account. Then, any time you want to go to a website to buy something online, a link will pop up in your browser. Click the link to activate a shopping session, and when you check out a percentage of your purchase in bitcoin will be credited to your Lolli wallet.

One caveat: you do have to wait until the return period is over before your bitcoin will be released, but after that, you can withdraw it directly to your bank account if you want to sell, or you can transfer it to any other bitcoin wallet.

Bitcoin Faucets

Definitely the most tedious option for earning free bitcoin, Bitcoin faucets will give you small rewards for completing activities like watching ads or filling out surveys. The amount of money you make will probably be a significant amount less than the minimum wage for the time you invest.

You should exercise caution too - a lot of these sites involve gambling and will go to great lengths to trick you into losing all of your hard-earned bitcoin on the roulette wheel.

Arguably the most popular bitcoin faucet of 2020 is Cointiply. To learn more about Cointiply or other bitcoin faucets see our blog post here.

Bounty Programs

There is a large number of alternate cryptocurrencies (altcoins) that are either copies of bitcoin or experimental new applications of one of bitcoin's underlying technological features. A few of these are very interesting, but most are scams. In any case, some of them offer bounties for completing different tasks.

These tasks may be as simple as retweeting a tweet on your Twitter account, but more complex tasks will usually yield a higher bounty. If you have any coding or computer skills, some projects offer sizable bounties for finding bugs in their code.

One source where you can find out about bounties is bountiesalert.com.

Most of the bounties out there are not actually in bitcoin, so keep in mind that if you do earn any money, you will probably need to transfer those tokens to an exchange and trade them for bitcoin. This can be difficult because the exchanges that support the trade of obscure tokens are often obscure themselves. If you do end up on these exchanges, try to get your money off of them as quickly as possible, because lesser-known exchanges do disappear with their users' money from time to time.

Coinbase Earn

In case you are interested in learning about some of the more well known alternative cryptocurrency, Coinbase Earn might be a good way for you to make some extra cash.

Coinbase is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, and one of the world’s largest. Initially, they only traded in Bitcoin, but have now added support for a number of other currencies. And to get people interested in these cryptocurrencies, they are offering up to $186 worth of cryptocurrency for learning about their value propositions.

To get the money, you’ll need to study some informational materials, and then take a quiz about them. After that, you can trade your altcoins for bitcoin.

Mining

Bitcoin's decentralized network is secured by a process called mining. Miners all over the world use large amounts of computational power to find solutions to a complex puzzle. The first computer to solve the puzzle enters bitcoin transactions into a block (a subset of transactions capped by data space) and adds them to the ledger permanently. They also broadcast the solution to the other computers so they can verify the solution. In return, the first computer gets some new bitcoin, called the block reward.

A high cost of mining makes falsifying transactions prohibitively costly, i.e. mining secures the bitcoin network.

When people first learn about bitcoin, many consider mining. Mining bitcoin can be cheaper than buying bitcoin, but generally only if you start with a large amount of time and capital to invest with.

On the other hand, if you do produce excess electricity, getting a bitcoin miner may be a good option for earning some bitcoin.

Staking

Similar to bitcoin mining, staking is a method used for securing a cryptocurrency network. Unlike mining, however, staking doesn't rely on computational costs for protection. Instead, staking uses an insurance model. Basically, people who verify transactions put down a security deposit. Any bad behavior (like falsifying transactions), results in them losing their deposit

Whereas mining uses specialized equipment, staking requires you to buy a certain cryptocurrency and put down a deposit on a special address. Earnings are then probabilistically distributed according to the amount that you stake.

There’s an ongoing debate as to the advantages of the different methods. Staking is certainly less technical than mining, but the coins that you would earn by staking are generally less stable and riskier than bitcoin, but you can trade them immediately for bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange.

Getting Paid Directly in Bitcoin

If you have some in-demand skills, you may be able to work directly for bitcoin. Cryptogrind.com is a job site where you can pick up gigs for clients that pay bitcoin. There’s also a number of forums, like bitcointalk.org, with job boards where you can offer your services.

If you already own a business or sell some kind of product, accepting bitcoin as a method of payment can be a good way to find new customers from among bitcoin enthusiasts. You could advertise your business in an online directory like BitcoinPeople.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @trylolli!

💜,
The Lolli Team