So you’ve heard the buzz about blockchain. Now what?

So if you are interested in blockchain, but not necessarily looking to park your paycheck on a wild roller coaster, how can you participate at all?

This article is here to offer a few ideas about how you can get involved, interact with real blockchain apps, and get your hands on some crypto assets with very little investment of your own fiat money.

First things first: to do anything at all with blockchain, you’ll need a Cardano wallet. Wallets are free to get and use! A wallet is kind of like an email inbox for your crypto (but a lot more secure!). You can see a list of good wallet options here: https://www.cardanocube.com/cardano-ecosystem-interactive-map (look for the “Wallets” section on the page!)

Every Epoch Quiz

Lido Nation hosts an incentivized quiz game every epoch – an epoch is 5 days on the Cardano network. Visit https://www.lidonation.com/en/delegators and scroll down to the quiz. Every quiz includes a link to the relevant article, so you can go find the right answer. We want to inspire and incentivize you to learn more about blockchain! When you get the answer correct, you will earn real Cardano tokens (usually our favorite good doggo meme coin: HOSKY).

Stake your ada

If you have a little bit of ada in your wallet, stake it! Staking your ada helps keep the network secure, and when you do it, you earn a return on your investment – that is, more ada in your wallet, every 5 days. Staking is no-risk, all reward. You can withdraw and spend or use your ada whenever you want.

In your wallet, look for a button or tab that says “Staking.” If you are looking for a good stake pool, let us recommend LIDO!

Rug Pool rewards

Most blockchain networks have a main currency, but also support the idea of other network currencies, which might be created for particular communities, or projects, or “Just for fun.” The just for fun ones are often called “memecoins.” Just like other internet memes, they can be just a moment in time, or they might become a touchstone of popular culture! In Cardano, HOSKY is one of the oldest and most popular memecoins, but it’s also a community, with a founder who is interested in inspiring more people to participate and learn about Cardano. To this end, HOSKY sponsors a number of stake pools, including Lido Nation.

If you are staked to Lido, you can claim MILLIONS of HOSKY tokens for yourself, every 5 days. Just send 2 ada to $rugpool. In a few minutes (occasionally it takes longer) most of your ada will be returned to your wallet, along with a chunk of change in the form of HOSKY tokens.

Drip Dropz

DripDropz.io is a Cardano app that gives you access to MANY different tokens on Cardano. It’s not free, and the case might be made that the network tokens you get at DripDrops might never rise in value enough to equal what you spent in fees to get them. But they might (Lol, not financial advice), or you might just be interested in exploring what is offered there. In any case, it will only cost an ada or two in fees to try it out.

Follow the instructions on the site to enter your wallet address. Then pick up to 10 different coins (go ahead and pick the full limit of 10). Then click “Claim my dropz”. You will be prompted to send 5 ada to a unique QR code. Most of that ada will be returned to your wallet, minus a couple that DripDropz keeps to cover transaction fees, and to pay for their service. Plus you will receive the coins that you selected! On the DripDropz site, you can explore the projects related to all the coins they offer. It’s a great way to learn about other projects in the ecosystem, and find out what your new network tokens might be good for.

Matera.club

Matera.club is a Web3 project in its infancy, but it’s open to testers now. In the testing phase, you start to earn Matera rewards. If the project works out, those rewards will eventually be tied to a real blockchain. If you are interested in being an early adopter and contributing to the possible future success of this project, it’s as simple as signing up and connecting a few of your social accounts to get started and earn Matera rewards.

Silencio app

Silencio is not a Cardano project; instead it is designed for the Peaq blockchain network. The concept of the project is to run a massive data collection operation – “FOR SCIENCE!!” – and to reward the citizen scientists who contribute data measurements (that’s you).

The project is gathering data about noise pollution in every part of the globe. In a long-term vision, that data may be used by scientists who want to find ways to mitigate noise pollution.

To participate, just download the app on your phone. Now and then, open the app and tap a button to measure the noise level around you. In your home, on the street, in the grocery store - just wherever you are. The decibel measurement from your phone, along with your location, is logged to the project. In exchange for sharing your data, you earn rewards.

In the Web2 world, one of the big problems is that we, as users, do not own our data. We sign away our rights when we accept the terms of social media apps. Other times, we don’t sign anything, but the data about our location, interests, purchase history and browsing habits is captured and sold anyway. Our data is extremely valuable. We’ve all gotten a bit more wary about sharing our data. A blockchain project like Silencio is an example of how we might shift that paradigm. You should have the option NOT to share your data at all…. BUT IF YOU DO, it should be your choice and YOU should be the one who gets paid.

Coinbase app

If you use Coinbase as an on- or off-ramp for your crypto (ie. a way to buy ada, or a way to sell your ada for dollars) then check out the options for “Learn to Earn” in the Coinbase app. These opportunities come and go, so you just have to check now and then. These little learning modules usually teach you a bit about a blockchain network. In exchange, you will earn a few dollars’ worth of tokens on that network.

What you do next is up to you! You can keep them in your Coinbase wallet, and see if they increase in value. You can trade them for ada, bitcoin, or dollars. You can get a custodial wallet on that particular blockchain and send them there!

Project Catalyst

Project Catalyst is the Cardano engine for community-led projects who want to build the next big thing. If you have an idea about something you could build on blockchain, Project Catalyst is a way to get funded for it. If that’s not you, there are still ways you can participate in Catalyst and earn ada:

• Vote: if you have at least 500 ada, you can vote for projects and earn more ada as a reward.
• Sign up to be a reviewer: Project reviewers get paid for reading project proposals and writing their opinions.
• Climb the ladder: If you do good work as a reviewer, you can climb the Catalyst ladder to become a level 2 reviewer, or a project milestone reviewer. These roles earn even more ada.

The rules and structure around these roles and ways to earn is something that changes and evolves over time. (Project Catalyst is an experiment by design!) The best place to find up-to-date information about how you can get involved is ProjectCatalyst.io.