In this episode and shote notes, we learn how to earn Cardano rather than continuously converting fiat currencies for ADA. In episode 22, we looked into how much ADA you need to retire. For some people, it still seems impossible to get enough ADA soon enough to retire and it bought up a lot of questions and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

We'll be covering options and ideas in regards to how you can possibly earn more ADA, from selling Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to selling products and services for ADA.

This idea is a transfer of ADA wealth and assets around the ecosystem from one user to another.

Earn Cardano from Making and Selling NFTs

At the time of writing and recording this podcast episode, we're just before the era of smart contracts and some of the features that we would expect to see in selling NFTs on a smart chain are not available just yet. This post will be updated as smart contracts and marketplaces that integrate smart contracts when they come into play.

There is an absolute new boom in the NFT space and the crypto markets. It seems that the ecosystem is maturing a little more every day with design and development teams putting together some amazing NFT projects. Some of the games that people are playing that have been created on other chains have thriving ecosystems with people driving cryptocurrencies into these NFTs to play these games.

Some of the games generate enough income from playing to be able to live off as a regular income.

Projects that are launching successfully on Ethereum or Cardano are selling out all their NFTs are making millions over the course of the sale. SpaceBudz, one of the original Cardano NFTs (CNFTs) sold out within a day another one just today sold over 50% of their collection in 10 minutes!

One really interesting launch that I'm monitoring is CardanoCity.

It's a mysterious NFT drop where we have only seen a handful of images from a Twitter account. They're stunning images generated in a futuristic cyberpunk metaverse. No one knows who is working on the project, no one knows any details of the project other than there is a website where the NFT might be dropped from, cardanocity.io. It should be released 12 hours after this podcast episode is released.

Cardano City landing page image

There is huge value, anticipation and desire for these NFTs.

That is where trading and selling NFTs come into play to earn Cardano.

Other notable projects include Unsigned Algorithms.

Unsigned Algorithms NFTs

Unsigned Algorithms or Unsigs

These NFTs are algorithmic generated art pieces that are completely stored on the blockchain. The code to generate each and every 31,119 pieces of unique artwork is all stored on-chain.

Not only has the project sold more than 30,000 NFTs, but they have also created a thriving community behind the idea and concept making it the most successful NFT project to date.

Check out their Discord community where collectors are now mashing together their collections creating deeper NFTs.

Making an Cardano NFT

The process of creating an NFT on Cardano can be complex as you will need to know and understand command-line interfaces to be able to mint it by yourself.

Luckily there are third party services and tools that you can use to mint an NFT.

The easiest by far is NFT-Maker.io. I interviewed Patrick Tobler in episode 4 about his platform and its future development.

To use the platform, upload a valid image file and fill in the form details.

Creating an NFT on NFT Maker

The image is stored on the IPSF servers, which is a distributed file storage network and the metadata is stored on the blockchain. This can then be traded peer to peer and exchanged the same way as you would send ADA to another person on a wallet that supports Cardano native tokens such as Daedalus, Yoroi or Nami Wallets.

The final step in minting the NFT on the website is to pay the fee. The last time I've tested the service, the fee was just over 4 ADA. This includes the ADA that needs to be sent in the transaction as Cardano requires you to send at least 1 ADA with an NFT.

Upon paying for the NFT, the token is generated and send back to your wallet.

You now would have successfully minted your first NFT.

In testing the process, I've created an NFT from one of my daughter's first digital art pieces for her future ADA fund. She's 2 so please excuse the detail and creativity.

The NFT can be visually viewed on Pool.pm.

Selling a Cardano NFT

CNFT Marketplace

The selling part is the trickier part at this point in time as there aren't mature marketplaces to sell Cardano NFTs.

The majority of the NFT community across multiple different blockchains have thriving Discord communities where NFTs are auctioned and traded between users with escrow services.

There are also a handful of Cardano NFT marketplaces that allow for the listing and auctioning off an NFT. The most notable is CNFT.io where you can sell and earn Cardano.

You can view Amira's NFT which has been listed for sale on the CNFT.io website. Buy her NFT and help here earn Cardano (ADA). 😀

The best place to sell an NFT and earn Cardano at the moment is via Discord and CNFT.io (when it is working).

• SpaceBudz Discord Server
• CryptoFly777 Discord Server
• Flowers Auction House

Learning More About Cardano's NFT Community

Cardano's NFT community is growing. It's creating new opportunities for designers and artists to release, and sell their creative pieces.

A really great YouTube channel that covers many of the Cardano NFT projects is NFTUpdate Show. Be sure to check them out and subscribe to their content to learn more about these emerging NFT projects, let them know you've come from the Learn Cardano Podcast.

• NFTUpdate on YouTube
• NFTUpdate on Twitter

Earn Cardano from Selling Good and Services for ADA

If you can't sell NFTs via a marketplace or if you don't have the skills to create digital art, then selling what you can do via a website may be the answer to earn Cardano.

If you're a consultant and want to sell your time and advice, or a t-shirt creator and want to sell your t-shirts online or any existing merchant, you can add a plugin to your website to sell products and services to earn Cardano ADA.

One of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world is WooCommerce. It allows you to get a shopping cart based website up and running within 30 minutes with a premade theme and even accepting ADA. If you have the right plugins you can be expecting to start and launch an ADA accepting WooCommerce website within 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, if you've never created a website before or a WordPress site for that matter, it may take you a bit longer. The 30-minute estimate comes from myself having created thousands of websites over the years.

There are plenty of tutorials and online guides about setting up a WooCommerce website. Here are some.

• How to setup a WooCommerce site
• Starting with WooCommerce in 5 easy steps

The rest of this guide will look at the options when it comes to accepting ADA as payment via WooCommerce.

Earn Cardano by Accepting ADA with NOWPayments

Accepting Cryptocurrencies with NOWPayments

NOWPayments is the current gateway that is being used on the podcast website where I'm currently selling hoodies, t-shirts socks and stickers based on artwork that we have created or own.

Now Payments allows for the simple and straightforward integration of ADA payments.

• Sign up for an account on NOWPayments and got through the KYC process.
• Install the plugin to your WooCommerce site and follow the instructions on how to configure the plugin.
• Setup your Now Payments account with your ADA Wallet address where you'd like to receive ADA via your website.
• You're now ready to start receiving ADA payments.

The plugin will and NOWPayments will handle the payment, communication with WooCommerce and the general workflow and checkout process for all users on the website.

The other benefit with NOWPayments is that you can also accept other cryptocurrencies, although, for some things that are sold online, the gas and transfer fees may be higher than what you are buying.

Earn Cardano by Accepting ADA with Mercury

Accept ADA Payments on WooCommerce with Mercury

Mercury is an open-source project that allows for the acceptance of ADA directly to a wallet address via WooCommerce.

• Install the plugin to your website
• Configure the plugin with an API key from Blockfrost
• Configure the settings to your wallet address
• Enable the payment gateway

It is a slightly more complicated setup but the benefit of this model is that you can accept payments directly with no extra third party service. Simply start accepting ADA and you're done.

COTI ADA Pay

COTI a project that the Cardano Foundation has been working with also provides an ADA payments solution. At the moment it is only opened to merchants that turn over $50,000 USD minimum monthly sales to be eligible to use their services.

Unfortunately, I can't cover how Coti may be utilised in a website that us mere mortals would have.

Support Our Show and Buy a Hoodie

If you love the podcast and want to support it, you can purchase merchandise via our WooCommerce store and use ADA to make your purchase.

Check out our merchandise on the Merch page

BONUS - Earn Cardano (ADA) by Becoming a part of the Project Catalyst Ecosystem

Contribute to Project Catalyst and the Cardano ecosystem to earn Cardano ADA

As pointed out by a Cardano contributor and podcast listener, Tomi, becoming a part of the Project Catalyst ecosystem is a great way to earn Cardano (ADA) and contribute to the Cardano ecosystem.

Project Catalyst is the governance layer of Cardano where users can pitch proposal ideas to be voted on and potentially be funded by the Cardano treasury.

There are three levels of participation in the ecosystem:

1. Proposal and project submissions
2. Catalyst Advisors
3. Referrers to the ecosystem

Proposals to the ecosystem get to work on challenges set out in each fund. Proposing an idea, forming a team and building out a solution is what it is all about. The top voted projects buy the community get funding.

Catalyst Advisors are the ones that review the projects and help the community navigate the hundreds of submissions. Advisors are compensated for their time and contributions.

Referrers are the ones that refer large projects to the Project Catalyst and get rewarded if the project that gets referred is chosen for funding.

If you'd like to learn more about Project Catalyst and how the ecosystem works around governance for Cardano, please listen to episode 3 where I cover everything you need to know about Project Catalyst.