How to Make Money with NFTs (11 Proven and Profitable Ideas)

Making money with NFTs isn’t as difficult as you think. More than $25 billion was spent on NFTs in 2021 and that number only continues to grow.

That said, there are several ways you can make an income with NFTs. I’m going to show you 11 ways you can make money with NFTs starting today.

How to Make Money with NFTs

1. Create and Sell Your Own NFTs

Creating and selling your own non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is one of the most popular and exciting ways to make money. Whether you create art, or other products or offer a service, you can use NFTs to add value to whatever you’re already selling.

The way to do this is by adding utility to your NFT. Utility is another word for “perks” which equates to more value for your consumers.

You don’t even need to create something new. By leveraging NFTs and blockchain technology, you can expand your consumer base by offering NFTs.

This way, you can capture your current market plus the NFT market. That said, you can create NFTs for free. That’s right. You don’t even need a lot of money to get started creating and selling your own NFTs.

2. Earn Royalties From Your NFT Creations

If you decide that you want to create and sell your own NFTs, make sure to set up royalties.

By setting up a 5 to 10% royalty fee on your NFT creations you can make that percentage on every secondary sale of your NFT perpetually.

For example, if you create an NFT with a 10% royalty and the person who originally bought it from you sells it for $1,000, you earn $100 (10%) from that sale.

And if the person who bought it for $1,000 sells it, you earn 10% of that sale too.

Ensuring that all your NFT creations have some percentage of royalties installed in them is a great way to make money passively.

One extreme example of how much money NFT royalties can make you come from Gary Vee and his brand VeeFriends.

In the first 90 days of launching his VeeFriends NFTs, Gary made $40 million just from royalties.

3. Buy and Hold NFTs to Build Long-Term Wealth

To build long-term wealth you should consider investing in NFTs which brands have launched in the early stages of web3.

Nike, Adidas, and Gucci are examples of name brands that utilized NFT technology early. Investing in these assets today could prove to be a good long-term investment.

With that, new brands like VeeFriends and Bored Ape Yacht Club were initially launched as NFT projects.

These blue chip brands have great potential to be the next name brands. As a result, investing in an NFT from these brands early on could result in a hefty return on your investment in the future.

Don’t just take my word for it though. You need to learn how to find good NFTs to invest in on your own.

There are key signs that could indicate a potentially good NFT investment. Once you learn how to find these NFTs, the sky is the limit.

4. Use Your NFT As Collateral

Similar to using your car or mortgage as collateral for a loan, you can use your NFT as collateral. Using your NFT as collateral is a good option if you need cash fast but don’t want to sell your asset.

To make even more money, you can use the cash you borrow to flip NFTs for even more money.

Then, pay back your loan, get your NFT back, and keep the profit you made from flipping.

This is a very risky way to earn money. But, if you’re good at flipping NFTs then it’s a realistic way you can earn money quickly.

There are several popular platforms used to collateralize NFTs including:

• BenDAO
• NFTfi
• Arcade
• x2y2

The main risk of using your NFT as collateral is that you are unable to pay back the loan and you lose your NFT. If you are willing to accept this risk, then it’s a good option to make money.

5. Trade NFTs (Flip)

Buying NFTs to sell them for a profit (aka flipping) is one of the quickest ways to earn money. Just like you can buy a product at a garage sale and sell it online for more, you can do the same with NFTs.

By taking advantage of down markets and sellers who are desperate for liquidity, you can buy NFTs for cheap and sell them for a profit. In some cases, you can buy and sell on the same day. 

Also, because NFTs are traded on the blockchain it’s much quicker than listing and selling physical products as there is no shipping involved.

However, this only works if you are keeping track of the market 24/7.

Day trading NFTs can easily turn into a full-time job. You have to know what’s a good deal and when a good time to sell is. 

That said, you can track the entire NFT market and specific NFT projects easily using Opensea’s stats or a market analysis tool like DappRadar

6. Buy and Sell NFT Real Estate

Virtual real estate also lands in the NFT realm. However, it’s a largely unexplored space in the NFT space in comparison to other popular NFT projects.

That means the potential to invest and make a substantial return on your investment is decent. 

There are several ways to approach investing in NFT real estate. 

Buying and selling (flipping): Considering not many people are buying NFT real estate yet, you can pick up virtual lots for fairly cheap and re-sell them in the future for a profit.

There are several metaverse worlds where you can purchase land. The most popular metaverses are Decentraland, The Sandbox, Otherdeed for Otherside, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium Space. 

Build a virtual business: NFT real estate isn’t just cool to look at, you can actually build a real business in these virtual worlds using your land. That’s why big-name brands like Nike, Adidas, and even Snoop Dogg have bought their own land in the metaverse.

Lease your land: If you don’t want to purchase land in the metaverse, you can just as easily lease land from another owner.

Of course, if you decide to lease land you’ll want to make sure that you have a plan to use the land and monetize it. Popular metaverse platforms like Decentraland enable you to build games and host events on its land and charge a fee.

7. Invest In NFT Companies

There are a number of NFT companies that have established multi-million dollar businesses and are publicly traded on the stock exchange. 

Some of the most prominent publicly-traded, NFT-related companies include: 

• Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) 
• Crypto.com (NASDAQ: CRO) 
• Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) 
• Nike (NYSE: NKE) 

It’s important to note that many of the companies that are building something great in the NFT space are yet to go public. And many of them likely never will. 

That’s where alternative means of investing can come into play.

Purchasing both physical (collectibles) and digital assets (NFTs) might be your only shot at investing in some of the best companies, so it’s always good to keep an open mind.

8. Stake Your NFT

One of the benefits of combining NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols is the ability to stake NFTs. Staking is the process of depositing your digital asset into a DeFi protocol smart contract in order to generate a dividend.

Some platforms let you utilize any NFT, whilst others demand that you purchase native NFTs in order to receive staking token incentives (which are often priced in the platform’s native utility token).

In some cases, a part of the benefits provided to stakeholders may be expressed in governance tokens.

These protocols allow token holders to control the future growth of their ecosystems. Tokens obtained by staking NFTs may often be used to fund other yield-generating methods.

Due to the growing integration of NFTs and DeFi infrastructures, it’s already feasible to build a position in a particular liquidity pool by contributing liquidity and receiving NFTs in return for doing so.

Overall, staking is a rather reliable strategy to make money from NFTs.

Some of the most popular platforms that facilitate NFT staking include: 

• NFTX 
• Kira Network 
• Only1 
• Splinterlands

9. Consult for NFT Startups

There are countless companies and small businesses that desire to implement NFT technology to leverage their brand. However, many of these companies have no idea where to start. 

Hence, if you have the knowledge and know-how to successfully launch and implement NFTs into a brand, you can make money consulting for such brands.

Eventually, a majority of brands will utilize NFTs. Similar to how every company uses social media.

That said, you can help these brands incorporate the technology early on. The best part is that these brands don’t have to be big-name brands.

It can be your local coffee shop, a friend, or a family member who’s looking to bring their business to the next level. And you can be the one to help them do that—for a fee of course.

10. Earn Affiliate Income Selling NFT Products

Affiliate income is a proven method to make money. As NFT technology becomes more prevalent in society, there will be new products released as a result.

With that, you can help these brands sell their products and get paid a portion of each sale.

To do this you need to utilize a platform like social media or a blog to provide value and help people make decisions about the products in question. 

If you can successfully help someone make a decision about which product is the best for them, all you have to do is provide them with your affiliate link to earn some money.

The greatest thing about affiliate income is that you don’t have to create your own product.

Instead, you provide helpful information about existing products and earn a percentage of the sale for doing so.

11. Play-to-Earn (P2E) NFT Games

Play-to-earn (P2E) gaming is one of the most exciting ways you can make money with NFTs. The current gaming industry is estimated to be worth over $300 billion.

And a small chunk of that comes from P2E blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity and Gods Unchained. 

Hence, the gaming industry is set to continue to grow and players have already been earning a substantial amount of money by investing their time playing these games and earning cryptocurrency as a reward. 

The most popular NFT-based P2E games played today are: 

• Axie Infinity 
• Gods Unchained 
• SoRare 
• The Sandbox 

In games like The Sandbox, you get to create your own games and digital assets and monetize them to earn real money.

Best Way to Make Money with NFTs As A Beginner

The best way to make money as a beginner with NFTs is by creating and selling your own NFTs, flipping, consulting, or selling affiliate products.

These money-making methods require knowledge, but, it’s knowledge that can be attained quickly. Getting involved is the best way to learn about NFTs.

After you get your hands dirty, then you can begin to look at other opportunities to make money such as investing in NFTs and related companies, using your NFTs as collateral, and staking your NFTs.

There’s no quicker way to learn about the market than getting involved in it yourself. Hence, creating, buying, and selling your own NFTs, as well as helping others do the same is your best option as a beginner.

Best Marketplaces to Buy and Sell NFTs

There’s an array of marketplaces where you can buy and sell NFTs. The most popular NFT marketplace is Opensea. However, it’s not the only marketplace. Below is a list of the best NFT marketplaces to buy and sell NFTs.

• Opensea
• Rarible
• Nifty Gateway
• Foundation
• SuperRare
• MakersPlace
• Mintable
• Coinbase NFT
• Known Origin
• SolSea
• Objkt
• Lazy

If you are just getting started with NFTs, I recommend checking out Opensea. Not only is it the most popular marketplace, but, it also has the largest variety of NFTs.

With that, you need to be extremely thoughtful as there are a lot of worthless NFTs listed on the platform.

But, if you are looking to buy the best NFTs, odds are that you can find them on Opensea. Likewise, you can create your own NFTs for free and sell them for a profit using Opensea.

11 Profitable Strategies to Make Money with NFTs

Making money with NFTs isn’t as hard as it might sound. Even if you are a beginner, there are still plenty of opportunities to earn a living with NFTs.

1. Create and sell your own NFTs
2. Earn royalties from your NFT creation
3. Buy and hold blue chip NFTs as an investment
4. Use your NFT as collateral
5. Buy and sell NFTs (flipping)
6. Buy and sell NFT real estate
7. Invest in NFTs and companies
8. Stake your NFT
9. Consult for NFT startups
10. Earn affiliate income selling NFT products
11. Play-to-earn NFT games