It’s become abundantly clear that in the 21st century, if you want to get ahead, then you’re going to need a side hustle. Selling soaps to your neighbors is nothing to be sniffed at, but there might be another way that could be more lucrative. The crypto world is bursting with potential, both for investors and traders, but also for another type of crypto collector. It’s now possible to earn cryptocurrency through gaming, by trading NFTs and selling them on outside marketplaces. The number of games that make this possible is growing and growing, so now is a great time to get involved. Whether you want to try it out as a new hobby, or as a new side hustle is entirely up to you, but we’ve got all of the information that you’ll need to get started.
The History of Crypto Gaming
Crypto gaming has a pretty short history, only around a decade. It was the online casino world that introduced crypto gaming first, though in a different format than how we now know it best. They made it possible to deposit with cryptocurrency and then use it to wager on various crypto casino games. Whether players wanted to play slots, blackjack, roulette, or poker, they could now do so with cryptocurrency, making their transaction times far shorter, as well as their transaction fees non-existent. Nowadays, some casinos give you the option to deposit instantaneously in crypto and then have it seamlessly converted into fiat currency for use on their sites. This gives the casino site an investment in crypto and the user a currency that translates more easily into small bets. For example, if you’re placing $0.10 wagers on a slot game, then that’s currently 0.0000034 which can get a little confusing to calculate!
After the success of crypto casinos, the idea of building a blockchain element into games was introduced. Huntercoin was the first coin to do this back in 2014 when they created a virtual world and scattered Huntercoins throughout it. Players had to simply try to find the coins, in order to evaluate whether the multiplayer blockchain game could handle it and work. The good news for wannabe crypto gamers is, it did. There are now hundreds of crypto games to choose from and we’ll next take a look at how to get started.
Axie Infinity is Levelling the Playing Field
Axie Infinity was one of the first play-to-earn games to really take off. This game is reminiscent of Pokemon, in that players can battle Axies in order to win in-game items or currency. They’re also able to trade Axies with one another, breed them using Smooth Love Potion or SLP, as well as sell them on an external marketplace as NFTs. The game has reached huge levels of success and now the average cash value of a ‘starter’ Axie is upwards of $500.
However, this hasn’t stopped people from making a genuine income from this particular game. In less economically developed countries, some quick-thinking entrepreneurs invested in Axies when they were much cheaper. Next, they trained them up, battled them and bred them to create some of the best Axies in the game. With these, they were able to trade them for outside cryptocurrency and make enough money to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Whilst this story is an uplifting one in itself, it also goes to show that it is possible to make money playing crypto games, as long as you go about it the right way. Choosing a game with a strong economy is the first thing that you’re going to need to do if you want this experiment to pay dividends.
Choose Your Game Wisely
It’s not as easy to make your riches on Axie Infinity now as it used to be, but it is still possible. If you’re concerned about reliably making money, even if it isn’t necessarily huge amounts, then you need to opt for a well-established game. Titles like Axie Infinity, Crypto Kitties, Splinterland, and Gods of Rust are all excellent choices, because they’ve been running successfully for a number of years. There’s been time for problems with the in-game economy to be ruled out and also enough time for their own currencies to obtain value.
Choosing a well-established game like this will also bring you the benefit of the knowledge of others. People have already been playing these games for a long time and have worked out the strategies that pay and the ones that don’t. Instead of having to blindly find your way through the first stages of the game, you can instead follow a guide on sites like Twitch or YouTube on what some sensible first steps are in your crypto gaming journey. With this information you’ll have a smoother transition into crypto gaming and can reasonably expect to make some returns on your investment within your first year.
