Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t anymore. Despite rising interest rates in the UK, the base rate is still at 0%, traditional savings accounts still don’t have the muscle to help fight back against rampant inflation. When goods go up 9% in a year, your money is just getting weaker and weaker every day if it’s not earning a chunky interest rate.

Cryptocurrency might bring better returns

Every time there’s a change in the price of Bitcoin, there’s a load of headlines and barely-concealed glee about the cryptocurrency market collapsing, etc, etc, blah. This is mostly built on the confidence that comes with knowing absolutely nothing about it.

However, it’s a fact that the cryptocurrency space has the potential to generate much better returns because it’s smaller, more volatile, and by definition has fewer middlemen. In fact, traditional finance used to be able to offer interest rates on savings accounts such as 7%. But then they decided that giving that amount of money away just wasn’t something they wanted to do anymore.

But yes, it’s changeable

Yes, cryptocurrency can change value up to 10% against the dollar in a single day. That’s kind of scary.

However, for the investor who doesn’t always want to be looking over their shoulder, there’s a more stable kind of cryptocurrency: it’s called a stablecoin.

A more stable coin

A stablecoin is a digital asset whose value is pegged to that of a real-world asset. The most common stablecoins shadow real-world currencies such as US dollars, euros and even British pounds. This is very useful because it brings traditional finance onto the blockchain to allow trades between the two worlds to happen.

Every stablecoin works in a different way to maintain its “peg”. One of the most successful stablecoins is a US dollar-backed one: USDC (“US Dollar Circle”), which is run by finance giant “Circle” in conjunction with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Each coin is backed by a real dollar in Circle’s vaults and is redeemable for one if you want to.

Risk vs Return

Even the safest, most stable, virtual asset will never be as safe as a traditional coin in a traditional bank account. Most governments worldwide have some kind of compensation scheme for savers in case their bank goes bust (in the UK, that means FSCS, in the US, FDIC).

However, that safety comes at a cost, and part of the payoff is a rate of interest that’s well below the rate of inflation. For instance, a standard savings account might offer 1.0% APR. Crypto, however, can offer significantly higher rates of return: and rates tend to be higher on stablecoins than on regular crypto because there’s a higher demand to borrow them.

Passive income for mums

So, if you’re a busy mum, dad or other carer, what if you have some spare funds for investing and want to protect them from the ravages of inflation?

Well, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and remember you need a cash reserve for emergencies.

But, let’s look at the difference between the rates you get at provider GCISL with our Gold account (using the USD stablecoins we mentioned earlier on), vs a typical traditional rate of return.

Let’s say you invest £1,000 over a year.

With Gold at a yield of 7% over 1 year, you would make £70. With a traditional savings account at 0.2%, you’d be looking at a princely sum of £5. Maths matters!

You can start your journey of earning passive income from stablecoins today, with GCISL.

It’s free to start up, and you get 10USDC to invest immediately: invest and watch those figures fly as you watch it grow in real-time.

If you prefer to do it on your computer, visit gcisl.com register, and get verified: photo-id-tastic! Proof-of-address-riffic!

There may be a short delay while that happens, but after that, you can secure your account with 2-factor authentication (you should do this with most of your logins!).

Then, you can fund your account by sending GBP or EUR from a bank account. There’s no deposit fee when you transfer from a bank account (minimum deposit, 100 euro equivalent). You can also deposit crypto into GCISL’s hardened wallets to invest straight away (again, fee-free), or even buy stablecoins with your debit card through MoonPay (third-party provider fees apply).

After that, you can start earning in earnest: the low minimum deposit also means you can painlessly supplement that amount later.

The post Passive Income using Cryptocurrency appeared first on GCISL.

Long-term Investment Stablecoin Strategies

First of all, what is a “stablecoin”? It’s “crypto not crypto”. A stablecoin exists within the digital realm, and its job is to represent the value of a real-world asset.

For instance, a US Dollar stablecoin uses technology to track the value of a dollar, so it’s always worth “almost a dollar”. Actually, sometimes it diverges more than that, but the technology is built into it to wrench it back.

While stablecoins can mirror a lot of things (such as sterling, euro, gold, silver, oil, etc), the most commonly used stablecoins are the US dollar ones, and these are the ones you would tend to get the best interest rates on because they’re the most in-demand for borrowers.

Having a stable income means removing as much uncertainty about the value of your investment as possible. Investing in dollar stablecoins is one of those uncertainties.

However, if you’re British (and spending GBP), then your income is still going to vary according to USD:GBP rates if you’re pulling income from it. However, the exchange rate (usually) moves much more slowly than in cryptocurrency: fractions of a cent a day.

So, investing in US dollar stablecoins combines the stability of the world’s reserve currency with the crypto-size returns.

Returns and Interest

Interest and yield both refer to the extra assets you earn for leaving them invested, and it is almost always expressed as a percent of the initial investment if it was left invested for a year.

For instance, a 10% return on £100 would generate £10 over a year. A 0.2% return would generate £0.50.

You can see the difference that high percentage yields on stablecoins would make: returns like the 14% offered by GCISL.

The maths get more complicated when you consider what happens when you get paid interest on your interest. If you get paid interest daily, then your assets are worth more each day… so the interest you get slightly increases. But then, you want to live off the interest, don’t you? So you’ll be making regular withdrawals.

Regular Income

In this case, your goal is a regular income, which means you’ll regularly be withdrawing the interest you’re making at certain intervals. That means you’ll be back to square one after a withdrawal.

Let’s say you withdraw monthly.

How much would you have to have in your GCISL account to make £500 a month?

The answer is you’d have to invest £89,682 initially. Remember any investment in stablecoins at GCISL is currently in US dollars, so the conversion to sterling would result in a slightly different amount each month.

To get £1000 per month, your GCISL account would need to contain £179,364.

To get £2000 per month, your GCISL account would need to contain £358,728.

Saving for an Income

So, you might not have enough to generate that level of income yet: well, that’s what saving is for.

If it’s possible, then saving an amount each month in somewhere high-yield, like stablecoins, allows you to climb that hill to a place you can suck dry later.

How long would regular savings take to get you to your target?

£100 investment, £100 a month

Let’s say you invest £100 a month into an GCISL stablecoin account at 7%. How long would it take before you had enough money to generate a £500 per month income?

The answer is: 26 years, 6 months.

Total you invested: £31,800

Total interest: £57,535

£200 investment and then £200 a month?

You get to a £500 a month income in 18 years, 6 months.

Total you invested: £44,400

Total interest: £44,650

And Traditional Interest Accounts?

Let’s assume an interest rate of 0.2%.

How much would you need to have invested to generate £500 in a month?

You would need over £1.2 million.

How long would it take for you to get to this with £200 + £200 a month?

Substantially over 200 years.

7% stablecoins for the win!

Start investing at GCISL now

Get a headstart on that investment and open an GCISL account at gcisl.com. Unlike traditional finance, there’s no deposit fee, a sensible minimum deposit (equivalent to 100 euros), and no fee for withdrawing to fiat currencies such as GBP or EUR.

To buy stablecoins you can fund your account from bank transfer and invest them in-app at no extra cost.

The post How to live off interest appeared first on GCISL.

It’s a hard world out there and getting harder. Insecurity rules the roost. The days of a job for life are gone. Retirement scoots further and further away.

You need extra income. “Invest it!” traditional finance says. If you have money to invest, traditional finance would be happy to take it off your hands. For a fee!

But what’s the easiest passive income stream to set up? What can be done with just an app and a bit of verification, and generate acceptable returns?

Well, that would be setting up a cryptocurrency yield account.

No, come back, don’t panic! You’re not going to become a trader or anything: you just don’t need that stress. You don’t even have to invest in actual Crypto if you don’t want to! “Stablecoins” exist, which are digital versions of existing currencies such as the US Dollar, and you can invest in those.

But even though Cryptocurrencies have a reputation for volatility, established Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are proven technology with enough market value to provide a stable (if volatile) market and protection against hackers. There’s safety in numbers.

So, how do you get started? Well, first, there are no miracles here: even the highest interest rates need you to have something to invest in. You should definitely not invest money you actually need for rent, household bills, or whatever. Every household needs a liquid buffer.

Don’t borrow from a credit card either: the interest rates on that are extortionate – there’s no interest-bearing account anywhere that can offer higher rates than a credit card. Investment is for “spare” money. This is a bit of a catch-22 (needing money to make money), but until Fairy Godmothers exist, that’s where we are. However, you can invest regularly as money becomes available, which then builds up.

Once you have funds to invest, we’re sure that you would appreciate an easy way to make it work for you.

The Easiest Passive Income Stream: Setting up a Crypto Yield Account

Sign up to GCISL for free

Download the free GCISL Web from the App Store or Google Play, or visit the GCISL website to get started. It’s the usual email address/password combination to get started.

Verify your Identity

Of course, GCISL will need to see a photo ID, address confirmation and a selfie: KYC and AML (“Know your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering”) are vital for trust and security. If you are onboarding on the website, you will need to use your phone for a selfie. Smile!

Make a Deposit (Bank Transfer, Card Payment or Crypto Deposit)

There are three ways you can get your funds into GCISL. Remember the minimum deposit is 100 Euros.

1. First, you can send in Cryptocurrency you might already own. Have you got coins hanging around from a brief flirtation with Cryptocurrency in 2017? GCISL can generate an address for you to send them to.
2. Second, you can send in fiat currency: GBP or Euros, with no deposit fee, and the same minimum deposit applies. You can convert these directly to stablecoins to invest.
3. Third, you can purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum within the app using MoonPay. You can buy with a debit card, and it gets deposited straight into your GCISL account. This is important because you save the transmission fees if you bought Crypto at an exchange and sent it in. Ethereum transmission fees can be very expensive these days.

Start Earning Interest!

Now, the easy bit! Sit back, sip a nice hot beverage, and watch your assets increase every second (although the interest is actually calculated and added every day – the good thing about this is that the yield is re-invested… it’s almost sneaky yield farming!)

You also need to decide on a withdrawal strategy: are you going to withdraw the interest every month? Every three months? Every year? Luckily, GCISL allows fee-free withdrawal to fiat currencies ($20 to Crypto).

Remember that passive income is taxable, though. It needs to be declared on a tax return. Alas, there is no getting around this!

Why is earning interest on Crypto with GCISL a good source of passive income?

One of the best features of our GCISL platform is that we offer excellent interest rates/yield rates. 7% on USDC stablecoins and 0% on Crypto (Bitcoin or Ethereum supported). This is much higher than traditional finance offers. Win!

It’s also super-simple and beginner-friendly, so you won’t spend hours contacting tech support or wrestling with the platform and options. Though our support is very good if you did need it. We’re also kind to beginners by giving you 10USDC to invest in the basket of stablecoins immediately – even before being verified! Do you know any other people giving tenners away? It’s not common!

If you’re super-impressed, you can also get an extra $75 for referrals (subject to terms and conditions – the person you refer has to do something other than taking the 10USDC!).

Super-Fast Funding

GCISL’s fast funding process means most transfers can be completed in an hour or less. Some deposits can take up to 24 hours, though – this is the fault of traditional banking, not GCISL! It’s a reminder of how clunky traditional banking can be.

Highly Secure – Technologically and Financially

Feeling like your funds are secure is hugely important to peace of mind. GCISL knows that, and we also know that when it’s something as important as security, you call in the best.

GCISL uses the leading security provider Fireblocks to protect its innovative wallets and assets. For financial security, we also fully insure any assets invested at decentralised exchanges that are used to make money for GCISL customers.

Any behind-the-scenes lending GCISL engages in to generate these world-leading interest rates is achieved as safely as possible. All loans to retail investors and institutions are 100%+ collateralised – that is, there is more than enough money put up by the lender to cover a default.

Sounds like Crypto yield accounts are an easy stream of passive income, right? Sign up for free today and see how you can make your money work!

The post What is the Easiest Passive Stream of Income to Set Up? appeared first on GCISL.

Passive income is any income you didn’t swap bits of your life for. That doesn’t mean it’s easy money: sometimes setting up the conditions for passive income involves a lot of work: for instance, the advice “write a book and put it on Amazon” is easy to say, but a lot more difficult to do! Equally, one piece of legendary advice from one of those “passive income articles” was “start an ATM business”, and it’s difficult to know where to start with that idea. Though I do know where I’d probably get the cash from!

Why should I earn a Passive Income?

Life is tough these days. Many businesses have decided that their staff are not actually worth very much. There’s a cost of living crisis almost everywhere.

Everyone could do with some income that just happens (though remember: it’s taxable!). Especially if they don’t need to put huge effort into setting it up.

Usually, passive income can’t achieve miracles though. Passive income is best looked at as something to re-invest (if you don’t need it right away), or something to smooth life a bit.

Moving away from Traditional Streams of Passive Income

The world isn’t short of passive income sources, but it is short of ones that actually generate a nice stream of income. There are lots that generate a trickle, and quite a few that might result in you losing part of your money – which I guess could be called “passive-aggressive” income.

Traditional Savings Accounts

We all know how this works: you give a bank some money, and they add interest every so often. Whether you can get access to your money again is dependent on the account, but the higher rates usually require months of lock-in.

Pros: Your deposit is protected by the Government. Probably better than hiding your money in a sock.

Cons: Very low rates indeed. Better rates require lock-in of money. Socks are more comfortable.

Purchasing Dividend-Yielding Stocks

These days, it’s much easier to buy stocks and shares than it used to be. There are lots of online brokerages, and if you’re feeling like 1/10 of a Netflix, you can use sites like eToro.

In theory, you get a passive income.

The whole point of share ownership is that you benefit from the success of the company you bought shares in.

If they make a profit, they (might) give a dividend to shareholders. In practice, picking stocks properly that will generate dividends is not trivial, requiring extensive financial knowledge. If you don’t do that analysis, you’re basically just gambling.

There are investment funds that will return a passive income that balances the risks from chosen shares. Some follow a market index (called a “tracker fund”), but these are really more for investing than getting an income out of it straight away.

Of course, the other drawback is that the price of shares and funds can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you put in. And dividends aren’t guaranteed anyway.

Pros: Investing in stocks and shares can be tax-free in the UK thanks to “ISAs”.

Cons: Dividends are not guaranteed. A substantial minimum investment is required to overcome fees. Dividends are usually paid yearly, so income would be lumpy. Requires expertise to invest. Considering the risk, dividend yields can be surprisingly disappointing.

Peer to Peer (P2P) Lending

Companies such as “easyMoney” (from the people who brought you that annoying boarding policy at Gatwick) operate peer-to-peer lending based on property lending. This is the most active part of the borrowing economy, but it’s hard work: every loan you make is one that you have to approve based on the borrower’s details. Your eggs are never all in one basket, but it’s a lot more finance-related work than you’d probably want.

Pros: Reasonable if unspectacular return, easy enough to do.

Cons: Continual decisions needed, your money is under threat from default.

Start Earning a Passive Income through Cryptocurrency

Much of traditional finance is disappointing because it’s not for regular people. If they benefit, they benefit by accident.

But what of Cryptocurrency and Decentralised Finance, those great equalizers?

They can certainly earn you a passive income. But, in Cryptocurrency, everything is exaggerated compared to traditional markets. The losses can be steeper, the wins can be greater.

Even the risks get larger: for instance, in Crypto P2P lending or other Decentralised Finance activities, because there’s an entire layer of “possible scam” attached.

Earn High Rates of Interest by Investing with GCISL

Luckily, you can take advantage of exaggerated interest rates simply and easily with GCISL. Interest-bearing Crypto accounts are made possible by a huge increase in borrowing in the Crypto space: and where there’s borrowing, there’s lending and interest!

GCISL offers you a flat rate of yield on your Crypto (or even digital versions of regular currencies) with no strings attached – 0% on the two biggest Cryptos, Bitcoin and Ethereum, and up to 7% on US Dollar stablecoins.

It’s easy to start investing with us: you download the app or visit the website and onboard. Of course, there’s registration and verification – you shouldn’t trust any provider that doesn’t do that. It makes life safer for everyone.

When you sign up (and even before you start sending us selfies), we invest 10USDC for you. The interest isn’t exactly going to buy your next coffee, but it’s something… and you can see the interest being added per second! (it’s calculated per day, which is still great for compound interest).

You can invest a lump sum but you can also invest over time: the minimum deposit is only the equivalent of 100 Euros, and there’s no deposit fee. You can access your money at any time, too. The only fee is $20 to withdraw to Crypto. Other bonuses include a $75 referral bonus (T&Cs apply).

If you don’t have Crypto already and want to invest in BTC or ETH for a diversified portfolio, then you can buy them in-app and save on transmission fees with trusted provider “MoonPay” (Fees will apply, though).

So, one of the easiest passive income ideas for 2022 is to open a Crypto interest account! Who would have thought it?

The post Passive Income Ideas 2022 appeared first on GCISL.

That’s passive income – when one of your assets makes you money on its own. It’s the only reliable way to get wealthy… but only if you can find an asset that will work for you. Assuming you’re a regular person, the asset that would work best for you is… your assets!

Whatever your angle, there are two approaches to passive income from the financial sector. There’s an investment (where, generally, your capital can go up or down in value while it’s generating income), and savings, where your capital stays the same (aside from bank fees and inflation) and you are given interest on your assets.

The world of non-Crypto investment is too large and varied to write about helpfully, but interest rates have been low for a long time in the savings arena. In a high-inflation time like ours, the interest is nowhere near making up for your savings being ravaged. In the investment arena, it’s also hard for normal people to make a decent return even in the medium-to-high risk investment categories.

Cryptocurrency, as a new sector that the banks have largely avoided, has much more opportunity for returns: even low-risk ones. But let’s look at the options.

Interest-Bearing Asset Accounts – GCISL

By far the simplest to understand and get going is interest-bearing asset accounts. At GCISL, we borrow and look after your Crypto tokens (we take Bitcoin and Ethereum) or your Stablecoins, which are coins that track a real-world asset less risky than Crypto. We accept USDC all of which track the US Dollar. While your Crypto could go up or down in value, the interest rate/yield you get from GCISL is 0% (Crypto) or up to 7% (Stablecoins), which compares favourably with interest rates in the traditional finance sector.

Other companies do offer interest-bearing asset accounts. Gotchas to watch include:

1. The reputation of the company (how are they regulated? What are the users saying behind the company’s back?)
2. Hidden fees, especially on deposits
3. Tiered interest rates (some companies give less interest on bigger amounts)
4. Conditional interest (the best interest rates are reserved for people who have fulfilled other, potentially expensive, conditions)
5. Withdrawal fees to fiat (these could be substantial)
6. Security measures put in place

For reference, GCISL is an Authorised Digital Assets Provider and well-reviewed, has a flat, simple-to-understand interest rate, and the only fee is $20 to withdraw into Crypto (with no fee for withdrawing into regular currency). You can buy Crypto assets in the GCISL Web to save on hassle and transmission fees from exchanges, though there would be third-party transaction fees from our payment provider MoonPay. GCISL has hired one of the best companies in the world to provide security to safeguard customer assets.

Lending

There are various platforms that you can join, register, and start lending to people all over the world for interest rates you define (take that, banks!). The system manages the transactions, competitive bidding, etc. Sounds good? Well, there’s one major problem: you’re lending to people all over the world. “People” is a problem, because people are unreliable. “All over the world” is a problem because of jurisdiction.

The net result is that the risk that any loan won’t be paid back is really rather high.

Cloud Mining

No, you can’t mine clouds, that would be silly. However, you can mine some Cryptocurrencies, namely the ones that are driven by “proof of work”.

That is, new coins/tokens created through computers all over the world competing to solve mathematical puzzles by brute force. It’s rather like a game of “Battleship” with a vast number of possible squares and the size of the squares narrowing every so often.

In the old days, you could mine Bitcoin with a regular computer. And it was worth very little back then. Nowadays, to do mining in your house, you need to spend thousands on equipment and join a mining pool to co-operate with large numbers of other computers.

Of course, that’s not a sensible thing to do, not least because the equipment is really noisy and you’d never get any sleep.

Companies have been set up that allow you to rent processing power from them. They then lend that power to mining pools, and you get a tiny share of any Bitcoins they find. Some cloud mining companies such as Shamining offer as much as 40% return on your money, though they’re vague about timescale.

This strategy is different to the other strategies because you have “spent” your investment and must hope that your return covers that and makes a profit. Profit calculators on their websites are generally meaningless because they usually don’t consider future changes to the difficulty in finding Bitcoin. Sometimes they don’t include their hidden fees either.

If you’re going to go down this route, due diligence is your friend. Check reviews and look at the company very carefully indeed. Cloud mining companies have collapsed before in Bitcoin bear periods, and they might well again.

Proof of Stake (PoS) Staking

Some of the currencies that aren’t “proof of work” are “proof of stake”: that is new coins are generated by rewarding existing coin-holders who “stake” tokens and then process transactions for the coin. The rewards are distributed based on the amount staked, the time it’s been there, and a bit of randomness.

In general, returns from this strategy are similar to interest-bearing asset accounts. There’s a vast choice of coins you can stake, though many of the smaller coins exist to draw the inexperienced in and keep their tokens.

There are a few downsides:

1. You can only do one coin in one place.
2. You need to be online and processing transactions 24/7 (staking your coins gives you the right to process transactions, but it’s processing transactions that give you the reward).
3. It’s more technical than interest-bearing asset accounts.

Yield Farming

This strategy involves taking the yield (i.e. interest) from one place and moving it to another place to optimise your passive income. In theory, this spreads your risk around and results in the greatest return.

So, you don’t need tractors to plough the yield field. But you do need to spend an awful lot of time and have an awful lot of experience to get it right.

There are a number of problems with this strategy:

1. Moving goalposts – the optimum strategy might change from day to day, and even from hour to hour because Cryptocurrency is a fast-moving development.
2. Moving tokens about is currently way more expensive than it should be until an upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 happens. Every time you move Crypto anywhere, you lose a chunk of it.
3. It requires you to be extremely well-informed: in fact, it requires you to be actively engaged with Crypto on a daily basis.

Hard work for passive income.

Pros and cons of earning passive income with Crypto

By now, the pros are rather obvious: you get more return than traditional finance.

The cons? Well, yes, in the world of Crypto there are plenty of them, which is why you have to be careful.

What now?

If you’re of a mind and think that interest-bearing asset accounts might be for you, why not try GCISL? We give you a 10 dollar USDC no-strings investment to start with, so you can see the interest being added per second (it’s calculated daily).

There’s a $75 referral bonus (terms apply), and you can fund your account from a debit card, bank transfer or buying Crypto in-app with our payment provider “MoonPay”. There are Apple and Android apps, and our website is also highly useful. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for free today and start earning a passive income from Crypto!

The post How to make passive income appeared first on GCISL.

“Yes. You can make passive income with Bitcoin. In fact, it’s one of those smart passive income ideas you’re always reading about on the Internet.”

Now we’ve got that out of the way, the big questions are: Should you? How would you? And what is passive income?

One way of looking at “passive income” is this: it’s any income you didn’t swap a part of your lifespan for. “Active income” is when you swap your hours for money. Passive income is when you create or do something that results in income (and hopefully keeps generating it).

It’s almost impossible to be wealthy without passive income because you have a limited number of hours to swap for money.

“Passive” doesn’t necessarily mean “no effort”, though. In theory, writing an e-book and launching it on Amazon is passive income. But you need to write a book that people want to buy. This requires time, effort, skill and money for promotion. There’s no “per-hour rate” earnt for that process, and most authors will never earn more than they would from active income from a job.

However, there are some sources of passive income that can sit quite happily alongside whatever you do to earn an honest living. These generally involve making your assets work harder to generate an income stream.

In this case, we’re looking at how you would use Bitcoin to do that. We’re also looking at some factors to help you decide whether it’s something you want to do before you actually buy any!

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency created in 2009 with the goal of growing an alternative financial system that wasn’t at the mercy of Governments and the big banks. These days, it co-exists with them. It’s a store of value. You can read more about what Bitcoin is here.

Earning interest on Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency has a reputation for vast profits, but that was always only for the lucky. However, the market does offer much better options than traditional finance through an increasing number of reputable companies, and friendly apps/websites designed for newcomers.

As a leading provider, we at GCISL provide what are, essentially, Bitcoin savings accounts, with interest that is paid daily and can be tracked per second. This earns you more Bitcoin over time (0% annual percentage yield currently).

The main risk with holding Cryptocurrency is that the value fluctuates up and down against regular currencies such as the dollar (called “fiat” currencies). Not only that, but they can move fast, and by large amounts. 10% in one day is not uncommon, a figure that would be called a “crash” in the regular financial markets.

However, over the long term (and I mean long), Cryptocurrencies have tended to go up in value. This is partly because of increased demand, and partly because of the scarcity built into their design.

If volatility makes you nervous, Cryptocurrency does have an answer for that: stablecoins. That is: virtual currency tokens that track the value of a real-world asset, representing them in the digital realm. The most common stablecoins track the US Dollar, but there are coins tracking other assets such as the Euro, the Pound, the Yen and even Gold and Oil. The best providers of these Crypto-interest accounts allow you to deposit stablecoins and earn interest against them (up to 7% on US Dollar stablecoins USDC at GCISL, for instance). At least then the dollar amount of your initial investment is protected, though you don’t benefit from any value increases.

Talking of value increases, here are some ways to make passive income with Bitcoin…

HODL (“Hold on for dear life”) Strategy

When you buy any Crypto at all that’s not earning interest, this is the default setting: any money you make will be from the Crypto going up in price and then (and this is crucial!): selling it to realise that profit.

As Crypto tends upwards in the long-term, while being quite volatile in the short-to-medium term, you’re not earning extra coins.

Trading (usually at a Cryptocurrency exchange)

In theory, you buy low and sell high! Sounds easy, right? Well, anyone who’s traded for any length of time will tell you that trading properly is generally a nerve-shredding experience: there’s no safety net.

Cryptocurrency exchanges can be the cheapest place to buy currency: for instance, the exchange with the lowest fees is INX Digital, and one of the most popular with consumers is Coinbase. However, sending your currency out of any exchange to a wallet app or lending app almost always attracts transmission fees.

Believe it or not, there’s an even riskier version of trading where you use your assets to borrow more money, which is then bet on whether Bitcoin will go up or down. Many of the big shifts in the Bitcoin price are due to these gamblers being “liquidated” (i.e. losing all their cash). We’re only telling you this so that if you see the word “leverage” you’re appropriately cautious!

Mining

You may have heard that Bitcoin is “mined”. Bitcoins come into existence when a mathematical puzzle is solved by a computer to a specified degree of accuracy. There can only be 21,000,000 of them, so the difficulty of the puzzle is ramped up every so often, which requires all the miners to upgrade their equipment. In the early days of Bitcoin, you could mine it with a laptop (it was also worth very little at that point), but these days it requires special optimised equipment, which is also power-hungry and noisy.

There are mining companies that allow you to buy some of their mining power and share some of their rewards, and if you have your own equipment you can join a mining pool (it’s almost newsworthy now when someone who is not in a pool mines a Bitcoin).

The calculus about mining is that the benefits outweigh the cost, but it also requires substantial outlay to make anything: either by renting mining power (called “hash power”), or by buying equipment and having a really good look at moving next to a waterfall. 70% of Bitcoin mining is using renewable energy, and increasing all the time with the energy prices going through the roof.

Summary

For newcomers, the most obvious way to earn passive income from Bitcoin is to find a platform to earn interest, decide whether you’re happy with Bitcoin or would prefer the security of stablecoins, do due diligence on your provider, and start earning.

Here at GCISL, we are a top provider of Crypto interest accounts and offer a free easy-to-use app. It’s free to join, you get 10 USDC for signing up. There’s a $75 referral bonus (terms and conditions apply), and you can buy Crypto and stablecoins in the app through our payment partner MoonPay. Our system calculates interest per day (and displays it per second!) so the compound interest keeps on building, and the only fee is a $20 fee to withdraw Crypto (but free to withdraw to regular money). We’re an Authorised Digital Assets Provider and adhere to anti-money-laundering laws, too: if a company doesn’t, run a mile!

Good luck in your passive income with Bitcoin quest! We’re all counting on you! So what are you waiting for, start earning interest on your Bitcoin with GCISL today.

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A passive income is, simply, the income you get without having to do anything extra after you’ve set it in motion.

Trading or e-commerce aren’t really passive incomes: while it’s true that the amount you get isn’t dependent on how much time you spend, you still have to do accounts, advertise, manage stocks, etc. Even self-publishing an e-book is useless without spending your time advertising it to people: the days of “build it and they will come” are long gone.

There are lots and lots of different ways of making a passive income. Here at GCISL, we’re fans of simple “set it and forget it” solutions.

We’ve read many different ideas ourselves; many of them are comically impractical for the regular person: such as “start a vending machine business” or “buy a company” since they require substantial assets or effort up-front. As for “pet-sit at home”, I’m not sure that the person writing that has ever met an actual pet if they think only light supervision is required.

Down in a regular-person city, the only really practical way to earn a passive income is to take your assets and make them work for you: money makes money, it’s really that simple.

This means investing wisely.

You’ve read this far, so *congratulations*, you qualify as wise!

OK, let’s get serious.

Savings, Investments and Balances

So, the two passive income methods that are “set and forget” are saving, and investment. The general difference between the two is that when you invest in something, it’s investing in an asset of some kind. That means the value of the underlying asset can change. It can go up, and it can go down. If it goes down, you can end up with less than you started with.

Making a choice of where to invest is difficult. The most important things to establish are: (1) how much risk do you want to take, (2) what’s the time period you want to invest for, (3) are you likely to need access to your funds unexpectedly, and (4) how much do you want to invest (“never invest any money you can’t afford to lose”).

Stocks and Shares ISAs

Most “conservative investors” would traditionally choose to invest in something like stocks and shares ISAs. This is a fund you would buy “units” in. There are a confusing number of funds that have different degrees of risk and global coverage, the general idea being that you buy into a basket of investments of a certain risk level that balance each other out: losses on one might be more than compensated by wins on another. It’s a long-term investment that locks up your funds and you can still lose some money, but it’s a popular option given that bank savings accounts pay so little interest these days as to be almost worthless, especially when inflation is eating into the value of your capital.

Your passive income from stocks and shares comes from any change in the value of the assets and a share of the profits of the underlying assets (a dividend). The Government also has favourable taxation rules for ISAs.

Savings Accounts

Savings accounts are simpler: you deposit some assets, and you earn more assets over time. In general, you have much easier access to your money in an emergency.

Cryptocurrency

For a more flexible investment that also pays more than bank savings accounts or ISAs, you need newer markets such as Cryptocurrency. New markets are presenting a lot of opportunities for businesses, but more friction raising funds, so there’s an opportunity for higher lending rates to businesses that you can benefit from.

For smaller investors, there are basically two realistic options to earn a decent amount of passive income that’s also accessible:

1. Buy some reputable Cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) and put it somewhere to earn interest (an investment approach)
2. Buy the electronic version of a foreign currency (for instance USDC) and put it somewhere to earn interest (a savings approach)

Even if you buy a reputable Cryptocurrency, the value of your investment can fluctuate quite significantly from day to day. However, it’s only a loss if you sell, and you should probably be thinking about long-term investment – Cryptocurrency has tended to go up in the long term. The people who made the most on Bitcoin were those who bought it early, then forgot about it, and remembered about it years later. As long as they didn’t lose their wallet details, they had a very nice surprise.

So, where do you find easy-to-use providers willing to pay you a decent amount of interest?

Well, at GCISL, we offer 0% interest on Bitcoin deposits, allowing you to acquire more Crypto painlessly. By offering up to 7% on digital dollars, you earn a return previously reserved for medium-to-high risk investment funds but without the value of your investment changing against the dollar.

One of the good things about Crypto investment or savings through GCISL is that you can withdraw your funds back to regular currency immediately for free, and deposit for free, too. The only fee we charge is $20 to withdraw your funds to Crypto.

We also give you a free 10USDC deposit that starts earning immediately.

You can get these in the GCISL Web/website itself through our payment partner MoonPay (Moonpay transaction fees may apply).

Now, doesn’t that beat “starting an ATM business”? And you don’t have to pet-sit a single cat or dog! Sign up today to get started.

Capital Safe. You must be satisfied that this Crypto offering is suitable for you in light of your financial circumstances and attitude towards risk. The price or value of Cryptocurrencies can rapidly increase or decrease at any time. The risk of loss in holding Cryptocurrencies can be substantial. Funds received by us in relation to Cryptocurrency transactions are not safeguarded (under the UK Electronic Money Regulations 2011) or covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in the UK. Profits may be subject to Capital Gains Tax.

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