100% legitimate methods to boost your Bitcoin holdings.
With the astronomical price rises across the board for Bitcoin and altcoins in recent years, especially for those who’ve turned spare change into massive windfalls, every tiny amount of crypto accumulated can go a long way.
We’ll look at five ways to get your hands on what is the closest thing to free crypto, starting with one of the easiest ones.
1. Airdrops
After a period of limited coverage and interest, primarily between 2019 and 2022, these have garnered considerable attention once again.
One of the most famous airdrops in recent history is the set of BONK airdrops in late 2022 and 2023. Approximately 170 Solana developers, holders of roughly 40 NFT collections, OpenBook/DeFi traders, and ~297k early contributors received BONK.
Moreover, those who bought Solana’s first phone, Saga, were also able to access a share of 30 million BONK tokens.
The memecoin experienced more than 100x growth, with the majority of its explosive growth occurring between November 2023 and November 2024.
Currently, Input Output Global (IOG), one of the main entities behind Cardano, is working towards a mainnet release of Midnight, seen as a privacy-focused sidechain closely aligned with Cardano.
IOG is conducting a NIGHT airdrop for eligible non-custodial wallets across multiple chains, not just Cardano.
Beyond cold storage, crypto exchanges are also rewarding some of their clients with airdrops, particularly Kraken.
Those who have signed up for Kraken+ membership are often invited to participate in airdrops. If you meet (very simple) eligibility criteria, you’ll receive what appears to be fairly generous airdrops, especially for a program that costs A$50 (US$33) annually. I have an affiliate link here if you’re interested.
I am glad to see one of the world’s largest exchanges offering this, as it hopefully sets a precedent for all centralised exchanges in the coming years, at least during bull cycles, when many emerging projects tend to be flush with cash and have money to spend on gifting crypto assets.
2. Staking
Just as simple, if not more inclusive than airdrops, staking has been a go-to form of passive income for crypto enthusiasts since its emergence around 2019.
Ethereum’s introduction of its proof-of-stake network, the Beacon Chain, in December 2020 further accelerated interest in this energy-efficient alternative to mining (Proof-of-Work) systems for older projects, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Monero.
Unlike various airdrops, most PoS cryptos allow even the smallest amounts of altcoins to be staked, thanks to liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) such as Lido DAO and Rocket Pool, in addition to stake pools for various blockchains.
3. Affiliate links and sign-up bonuses
Even though cryptocurrencies have been around for over 15 years, we are still very early in this space.
Expect over a billion new users to enter this space by 2035, accompanied by billions of registrations for centralised exchanges, hardware wallets, share-trading platforms, and other fintech services.
New users will be eager to take advantage of small freebies here and there, and with this opportunity comes the idea of promoting affiliate links. I have included some relevant and useful ones towards the end of this article, if you’re interested.
4. Crypto lending services
I alluded to a few entities involved in Bitcoin (and altcoin) lending, both decentralised and centralised options, in my last article.
As a quick recap, Nexo is another company offering a “staking” service for Bitcoin by using a synthetic BTC token, i.e., one that follows the price of BTC. It provides daily payouts without a lock‑up period, presenting a flexible option while you keep control of the underlying asset.
It reportedly pays up to 7% interest on your BTC, paid daily.
From my understanding, this generous interest rate is partially due to the BTC being loaned to people at a higher rate, especially when there’s strong demand for borrowing Bitcoin.
Other companies involved in Bitcoin (and some altcoin + stablecoin) lending services include Ledn, CoinLoan, Abra and even Coinbase. Block Earner is a popular regulated crypto lending service for the Australian market.
There are also decentralised alternatives such as Aave, ether.fi, Compound and MakerDAO. However, most of these rely on the ERC-20 token, Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) or other Ethereum-based BTC-pegged options for borrowing and lending on their protocol, rather than native BTC.
As always, do your due diligence before proceeding with any of these.
5. Crypto cashback cards
As more financial institutions realise the long-term potential of Bitcoin and a handful of blue-chip altcoins (ETH, BNB, SOL, LINK, ADA, XRP, etc.), they recognise the business potential of attracting a new wave of clients through the use of BTC/crypto cashback services.
A modest 1–2% can add up in the long term, especially with predictions exceeding $1M per BTC, not to mention eight- and nine-figure amounts as well.
I can’t vouch for any options as I don’t have one of these cards. I recommend checking out 9 Best Crypto Debit Cards 2025 (updated 30 September 2025) by Michelle Legge, Head of Crypto Tax at Koinly.
Additional thoughts
You’ve likely heard stories about people earning substantial income through affiliate marketing, brand deals and so on.
While many will scoff at the modest amount of satoshis or altcoins you’d accumulate through these methods (chump change at best, for many in the developed world), don’t underestimate the potential income boost that could be made through years of racking up crypto by adopting all of these strategies at the same time.
This, in tandem with regularly buying BTC/crypto with loose change every week, in addition to other ways to boost your bags by studying promising altcoins and high-performing crypto stocks, you will eventually see vast progress made.
While it might no longer be life-changing, it will definitely provide a welcome and possibly much-needed boost to one’s net worth.
There’s a drop in the bucket, then there are several drops filling it up at an increasing speed, when you’re savvy about reinvesting your crypto and maintaining the profits through different income streams.
With above-average inflation and drastic cost-of-living increases in recent years, which are unlikely to subside anytime soon, now is more important than ever to cut back on unnecessary expenses (e.g., underutilised memberships, expensive toys, lavish restaurants, luxury fashion, etc.), boost your income, or, preferably, both.
We’re still relatively early to Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, but this won’t be the case for much longer. A quick reflection on prices up to 2020 is the only reminder you need about this.
Affiliate links
If you’d like to purchase a Ledger or Trezor product, please use the following link to help support my channel. I receive a small commission per sale at no additional cost.
Kraken
Get A$50 to your Kraken account. Unlock it after your first trade of A$200 with code: yt7dpbgr or through this link: https://invite.kraken.com/JDNW/g5xvarar
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Disclaimers
• N.B. None of this is financial advice; I am not a financial advisor. You are ultimately responsible for your investments.
• My opinions in this piece may not reflect those of any news outlet, person, organisation, or other entity listed here.
• Please do your due diligence before investing in any crypto assets, staking, NFTs, or other products associated with this space.
• Information is correct at the time of writing.
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