Author: Zun

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

PANews Editor's Note: In the current Crypto market, many complain that timelines are filled with noise and pointless arguments, as if the era of easily making money (such as Play-to-Earn, Move-to-Earn, or testnet airdrops) is gone forever. However, the opportunities haven't disappeared; they've simply changed form. This article, written by Zun, reviews the cyclical trends of the Crypto market and details several currently viable avenues for profit. Below is a translated version:

Honestly, open your Twitter timeline now and scroll through it for two minutes. What do you see?

You'll see people comparing four L2 networks that nobody uses;
You'll see people posting rankings of Crypto's top Twitter influencers in an attempt to get more engagement;
You will see people spreading misinformation...

So basically, most of it is noise.

However, just because your Twitter timeline looks lifeless doesn't mean the opportunities are gone. Opportunities still exist, they just look completely different from what most people are used to.

Past trends

If you've been in the crypto space long enough, you'll know that this market operates in waves. Each cycle, each season, even each quarter brings a completely different meta (core gameplay). And whoever can figure out the current meta first will reap the rewards.

Recall that in 2021 , Play-to-Earn was all the rage, and Axie Infinity even became a full-time source of income for people in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, many families participated in the Axie Scholarship Program. The rules were simple: buy NFT characters, play games, earn tokens, and then cash out.

Then Move-to-Earn emerged, StepN launched, and suddenly everyone was buying NFT sneakers just to earn money by walking. It might sound absurd, but people were indeed earning hundreds of dollars a week simply by tracking their daily steps. Step App, GetKicks, Walken, and a whole host of copycat schemes followed suit. In short, if you understood the mechanism and got in early enough, you could make money.

After that, the NFT era arrived, and reselling small images became the most profitable activity in the entire Crypto space. But that era is now over.

Then the era of testnet and airdrop interaction began. For nearly a year and a half, the trend was incredibly simple: find a project funded by top-tier venture capital, use their testnet, interact with their contract, transfer some funds across chains, and then wait to claim your airdrop. This was the simplest meta ever seen in the crypto space. People with no programming skills, no funds, and no social media followers could rake in five-figure airdrops simply by clicking a mouse on the testnet.

But that era was gradually fading away. Project founders began to become greedy, and the amount of tokens allocated for airdrops became smaller and smaller. In addition, the Sybil attack problem was another reason for the end of this Meta.

So what we're in now is a situation where there's no Play-to-Earn trend, no Move-to-Earn trend, and testnet interaction is no longer what it used to be. The Twitter timeline is full of people arguing about trivial things, creating interactive bait, or posting about hacking attacks/exploitations, because that's the only news cycle in the crypto space right now.

The Hidden Secrets to Wealth: Four Real Sources of Income

However, here's what I've observed: while 90% of encrypted Twitter users are busy boosting their visibility, only a small fraction are actually making money.

1. Monetization on Platform X:

This is perhaps the most obvious one, yet many still underestimate it. X has officially dubbed 2026 the "Year of Creators," and they've even doubled the revenue-sharing pool. Revenue is primarily based on exposure from verified Premium users, and some Crypto creators are now earning $500 to $2,000 per month just through X's revenue sharing, without needing any single sponsorship. It won't make you rich overnight, but it's a stable income in the current market.

2. Ambassador Program:

This approach is severely undervalued. Project teams are no longer throwing money at random KOLs to promote their tokens. Instead, they're building structured ambassador programs that pay out monthly for actual work. Alchemy Pay offers a base salary of 200 USDT per month plus unlimited performance bonuses, while Injective has the Ninja Masters program, providing tiered token rewards. These are all real jobs with tangible rewards.

3. Discord Administrator:

I believe many people in this field are earning a stable income by managing project-specific Discord servers. All you need to do is answer questions, manage the community, process tickets, and ban scammers to get paid—it's that simple.

4. Developer Program:

This is the point I most want to talk about because I believe this is where the real opportunity lies for those with skills, and frankly, it's the path I chose myself.

I want to give a shout-out to @realchriswilder, whose profile shows he now has around 3,000 followers, whereas he had even fewer when he started.

These days, many content creators will tell you to grow your account, post viral tweets, get engagement, and build an audience . Honestly, if you want to become a content creator, there's nothing wrong with that.

But Chris chose a different path based on what he was truly good at. He understood and loved programming. So he started building on various projects and protocols. He participated in developer programs and began earning income from these jobs instead of tweeting.

This is the part most people overlook. You don't need to be a content creator to make money in the crypto space. You don't even need a huge fan base. If you can code, the entire ecosystem is now full of opportunities specifically for people like you.

Here are some examples of active developer programs:

Zama recently launched the second season of their Developer Program mainnet, offering over 15,000 cUSDT in rewards across three tracks. The Builder track requires you to deliver a privacy-focused dApp using the Zama protocol; the Bounty track requires skills in building AI agents for FHE; and there's also a special Asia-Pacific bounty task powered by OpenBuild.

Arc has also launched their Architects program to recognize developers who make significant contributions. You can earn points by answering technical questions, publishing tutorials or tools, and mentoring other developers. Top contributors will receive roles such as community administrator, meetup organizer, technical speaker, and regional manager.

Ink (launched by Kraken) is running their developer program, which includes two active tracks. The Spark track offers micro grants of 500 to 5,000 USDC for small projects such as tools, bots, and mini dApps, with a very fast approval process. Forge, on the other hand, is the flagship track, offering milestone-based grants of up to 200,000 USDC to teams that scale real-world products on Ink and have real-time appeal.

Key takeaways and recommendations

The reason I wrote all this is not to give you a list and let you randomly pick something to do. Rather, I want you to think about something more fundamental.

From an internal perspective, every bear market feels the same: there's nothing to see on the Twitter timeline, everything changes over time, and the most common feeling is "nothing to do." But this is never the truth. What changes between cycles isn't whether opportunities exist, but rather in what form they appear.

In 2021, the opportunity looked like playing video games;
In 2022, it looked like walking;
In 2023, it looks like clicking a button on a testnet;
In 2026, it will look like building, creating, managing, and finding vulnerabilities. Only the form of the Meta has changed; the opportunities haven't disappeared.

But next you must examine yourself and figure out where you truly belong. Not where you wish you belong, nor where Crypto Twitter tells you where you should go. Rather, it's where your actual skills and circumstances place you.

If you excel at writing and creating content, the X platform's monetization path and ambassador program make a good choice. If you're a community-oriented person who enjoys management and organization, Discord administrators and community roles are tangible sources of income. If you're a developer, developer programs and bounty missions are there for you. If you have security knowledge, the white-hat bounty field is now more rewarding than ever before.

The worst thing you can do right now is sit there, scrolling through a noisy timeline, and concluding that "everything's gone." Those who made money in this bear market didn't just sit idly by waiting for the next testnet meta. They recognized their strengths, found areas in the ecosystem that valued those skills, and quietly invested in them!

Starknet计划于1月30日在Goerli测试网进行压力测试

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