On Wednesday (19 December 2018), day 10 of Coinbase’s “12 Days of Coinbase” initiative (a new announcement every day between December 10th and December 21st), the crypto exchange announced the launch (in invite-only mode) of Coinbase Earn, a new way to earn crypto while you learn crypto.
Here is how Coinbase explains the motivation behind Coinbase Earn:
“Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system, where anyone in the world can participate on equal terms from their computer or smartphone. To bring this vision about, we’ll need to make blockchain technology more accessible, both in the sense of making cryptocurrencies easier to obtain and easier to understand.”
To manage demand (which is bound to be huge), Coinbase is “launching Coinbase Earn today in invite-only mode with a single asset: ZRX,” with more educational content and other cryptoassets to be added in the future as Coinbase gauges the results of this experiment.
Those lucky enough to have received a Coinbase Earn invitation via email can “go to the Coinbase Earn ZRX page to earn small amounts of cryptocurrency by completing educational tasks like short video lessons and quizzes,” and those who haven’t need not worry since it is possible to “view all educational content on the Coinbase Earn page for free”; if you click on the “Join Waitlist” button at the bottom right corner of the Coinbase Earn landing page, you should eventually get an invitation by email.
Currently, the following three (beginner level) video lessons are available for those who want to learn about 0x (ZRX):
- Lesson 1: “The world is becoming tokenized”
- Lesson 2: “What is the 0x protocol?”
- Lesson 3: “ZRX and the future of 0x”
This is what Coinbase sees as problems with the traditional methods for regular people to obtain cryptocurrency:
“Traditionally, the two ways people have obtained cryptocurrency are through mining or buying. Mining cryptocurrency typically requires technical knowledge and high upfront costs, while buying cryptocurrency can require disposable income to exchange for cryptocurrencies.”
Coinbase believes this third method, i.e. earning while you learn, “has the potential to expand the blockchain user base from the tens of millions of people with the resources to mine or buy crypto to the billions of people who now have smartphones.”
Verified, invited users are given a series of useful tasks to complete from anywhere to earn digital currency; initially, this is going to be 0x (ZRX), with the funding for it “coming from the 0x external development pool, with 100% of the funds going directly to users.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Coinbase
