Get paid in cryptocurrency for your blogs, videos, memes, selfies, or other social media posts
Have you been looking for alternatives to social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Medium?
As they continue to censor free speech and exploit your data for profit, new alternatives are beginning to emerge that respect your privacy and pay you to participate.
These alternative social networks leverage blockchain technology and pay users in cryptocurrency. Some use tipping mechanisms while others pay for engagement on posts, upvotes and comments.
If you’re a content creator, these platforms provide an excellent opportunity to earn cryptocurrency even if you don’t know anything about blockchain or cryptocurrency. Earnings can be withdrawn from the platforms into wallets or exchanges to convert cryptocurrency to dollars in your bank.
Some of these blockchain social media platforms are in early beta and may be a bit glitchy, but the user experience is likely to improve as time goes on.
Blockchain Alternatives To Facebook
Facebook is a social media platform that enables you to create a profile and connect with friends to share content. Although it’s got some useful features and the largest network effect, it is on the decline.
Over the years Facebook went from being an organic platform where you choose what content to consume, to them deciding what you get to see. They now censor any information that is considered “controversial” by their corporate “fact checkers.”
Additionally, Facebook has broken the trust of many users by selling private data to third parties – including governments.
For all intents and purposes, Facebook has become little more than a messaging platform that tracks your every move.
There’s no better time than now to drop Facebook and reclaim ownership of your social media data.
Here are two blockchain social networks similar to Facebook that pay you for your activity.
Minds
Minds.com was created to directly compete with Facebook. They use an internal token that you can purchase with Ethereum. Tokens are used to upgrade features, boost posts and tip other contributors. Minds functions great with an intuitive dashboard and a very clean display.
Minds writes:
Post videos, blogs, images and statuses. Message and video chat securely with groups or directly with friends. Discover great content through trending feeds and hashtags.
Earn tokens for your daily contributions and use them to upgrade your channel, boost your content for more reach and support other creators.
You can also receive direct payments in USD, Bitcoin and Ether from your fans.
Minds boasts over 1 million users though it still feels like early days. Join Minds here.
SoMee
SoMee.social is a new social network built directly on a blockchain where you earn cryptocurrency for posting, upvoting and commenting. SoMee has a very slick design for desktop and mobile apps. You get 20 ONG tokens for signing up so you can instantly participate on the blockchain without having to make a deposit. SoMee has tremendous potential because of its gamified clean design.
It is similar to Facebook in that it allows you to “friend” other users, create and join groups, and send direct messages.
When you post text, images and links into your feed, you make ONG tokens when people upvote your content. How much you earn depends on the voting power of your upvoter.
In other words, the more ONG you have the more your posts and upvotes are worth. You can earn hundreds of dollars in a single post if a whale upvotes you.
You can also earn ONG and more voting power simply by upvoting, but you can also “power up” by adding ONG to your profile. Join SoMee here.
Blockchain Alternatives to Twitter
Twitter is a social network and microblogging platform that connects people based on ideas. Although Twitter is one of the better platforms for respecting free speech, they have really ramped up censorship after the COVID panic and the 2020 presidential election in the US.
Here are a couple blockchain alternatives to Twitter that respect your data in early beta stages:
Twetch
Twetch.app is a microblogging platform that’s very similar to Twitter but runs on the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain. They write “Twetch is the decentralized social network where you own your data and earn money for your content.”
To join, you must enter an email address and wait for an invite. Then you must get a RelayX wallet that allows you to participate on the platform using BSV.
The app is nearly identical in functionality to Twitter except that you are rewarded for getting followers, liking and branching (resharing) content. Twetch also has a private messaging and payment function in the app. Join here.
D.Buzz
D.Buzz is a microblogging platform that runs on top of the Hive ecosystem of DApps. It has a simple interface and works a lot like Twitter except you get paid in HIVE tokens for likes.
You must sign up for a Hive Keychain wallet in order to participate at D.Buzz.
Blockchain Alternatives to YouTube
YouTube has become “ThemTube.” YouTube used to be a cornucopia of information where you could discover independent content creators discussing nearly any topic. However, today, corporate media is elevated while you are banned from the platform for all types of wrongthink. Even cryptocurrency channels are constantly censored, demonetized, or banned altogether.
Here are three blockchain video platform alternatives to YouTube that are starting to gain traction:
LBRY/Odysee
LBRY.tv and Odysee.com are the same organization. Users can set up video channels on either platform and it will be mirrored on the other. Odysee makes it simple to sync your YouTube channel to populate your old videos into your channel.
LBRY is the blockchain that Odysee runs on top of. Users are paid in LBRY Credits (LBC) when viewers like videos or tip the creators.
LBRY has been growing leaps and bounds in 2020 due to mass censorship campaigns by YouTube. If you have a YouTube channel, sync it with LBRY/Odysee today and start earning. Join here.
3Speak
3Speak is a tokenized video platform on the Hive network. It works similarly to LBRY in that content creators earn Hive tokens when other users engage with their videos or when they purchase “subscriptions” to exclusive content.
About 3Speak from their website:
3Speak is a place where content creators directly own their onsite assets and their communities. Using blockchain technology, the ownership of these assets and communities are intrinsic to the creator and the user, not 3Speak. They are therefore transferable to other apps that use blockchain technology. This means that if we do not serve the community and creators in the best possible way, they can take the assets they have generated and move them to another app. The result is that 3Speak is censorship resistant, cannot take your assets away or delete your communities.
By using the platform, users get rewarded in Hive tokens and can receive donations in our proprietary Speak token. The more of these tokens you hold, the more privileges you have in the eco system. Additionally, the more tokens you hold, the more say you have over the governance of the platform and where it goes in future.
The blockchain technology that the site uses ensures that content creators have true P2P connections to their user base, without any middle parties.
Content creators can also easily create their own tokens, market places, stake driven rewards and economies to back their communities
Join 3Speak here.
THETA.tv
THETA.tv is a livestreaming and video platform built on the Theta Network. ThetaTV is a lot like Twitch as it is primarily used by gamers who livestream their gameplay. But on ThetaTV, even viewers earn cryptocurrency! They boast “Watch streams, earn crypto!”
“THETA.tv is the next generation live streaming entertainment platform – based on blockchain – where viewers earn cryptocurrency, TFuel, just by watching streams.”
TFuel, or Theta Fuel, is a separate token with a different value than Theta Network.
Join THETA.tv here and start earning today!
Blockchain Blogging Platforms
Social network blogging platforms like Medium are great for spreading your message if you don’t have a personal blog. Medium users can search by topics and subscribe to contributors that they like. Unfortunately, Medium has gone the heavy censorship route.
Recently, Substack has grown in popularity because it allows independent journalists and writers to easily monetize their work through subscriptions. And Substack is much more friendly to controversial content.
However, if you’re a journalist, blogger, writer, or author who wants the freedom to speak your mind and earn cryptocurrency for your work, here are the blockchain blogging platforms to consider:
Publish0X
Publish0x.com is a social blogging platform primarily about cryptocurrency that integrates the Basic Attention Token (BAT) as a way to tip contributors. Publish0x can be used to syndicate content from your blog or video channels, but original content earns the most rewards.
BAT is the token used in the Brave privacy browser.
You get about $0.01/BAT for free to use the platform when signing up. Other tokens like Loopring and Ethereum are also able to be used on Publish0x. Start blogging today on Publish0x here.
Steemit
Steemit.com is the original blogging platform that rewards users to post original content and curate (upvote) other content. Steemit has a very basic layout, but its writing and editing dashboard is not as intuitive as other blogging platforms. There is a learning curve to be able to post well formatted content. Be sure to read the tutorials before posting.
Users are paid in a variety of tokens STEEM, STEEM Dollars, and STEEM Power. STEEM and STEEM Dollars can be traded at cryptocurrency exchanges, while STEEM Power is used onsite to give users increased voting strength. The more STEEM Power you have, the more your votes are worth.
Steemit was purchased by TRON, so now you also earn TRON (TRX) rewards on your activity.
Join Steemit here.
HIVE.blog
Hive.Blog is another decentralized app on the Hive network (this article already covered D.Buzz and 3Speak). Hive is a fork of Steemit run by the original founders. So it functions almost identically, although Hive seems to have more development and user activity. As such, earnings are higher at Hive than on Steemit.
Steem users prior to the fork can log into Hive Blog with the same credentials, and they will have the same earnings on Hive as they do on Steem. Or you can start fresh by joining Hive here.