2026 Passive Income Full Guide for Crypto Assets: Comparison of 6 Ways to Make Money

The crypto market may experience significant fluctuations in 2025, but 2026 could welcome a key moment with institutional funds, clearer policies, and a DeFi explosion. Instead of watching the market every day to trade, it's better to find a suitable passive income method for yourself. Below, we will analyze the returns, risks, and thresholds of these 6 strategies one by one.

Comparison Table Overview

1. AI Trading Bots: Automated but Understand Risks

Using platforms like Kryll and 3Commas, robots can automatically buy and sell based on technical indicators. It sounds comfortable, but essentially it is still trading, and high-frequency operations imply high risks. Most day traders lose money—data shows that 90% of retail traders lose money within a year.

Truth: Unless you really have trading experience, don't touch AI robots.

2. Staking: The Most Reliable Choice

ETH, SOL, and DOT are PoS coins that can earn an annual return of 5-15% by locking them on platforms like Lido and Rocket Pool. Liquid Staking is more flexible, allowing users to sell the rights to their earnings during the lock-up period in exchange for LST tokens to continue earning interest elsewhere.

Key Data:

• ETH Staking annualized 6-8%
• SOL Staking annualized 8-12%
• The risks mainly come from exchanges running away or code vulnerabilities.

3. Lending Agreements: High Returns but Choose the Right Platform

DeFi lending protocols like Aave and Compound allow users to deposit stablecoins (USDC, DAI) and earn an APY of 8-15%. Borrowers are required to collateralize excess assets to borrow money, so theoretically it is very safe. However, in reality, last year platforms like Celsius and Voyager collapsed, leaving users with significant losses.

2026 Pitfall Prevention Guide:

• Choose major protocols (TVL over 1 billion USD)
• Check the code audit report
• Decentralized across multiple platforms
• Don't go all-in on one cryptocurrency.

4. Yield Farming: A Gambler's Game

In a certain DeFi protocol, when you deposit a trading pair (like USDC-ETH), the protocol will reward you with tokens based on the liquidity you provide. The theoretical annualized return can exceed 50%, but there are the most pitfalls involved here:

• Impermanent loss: The drastic Fluctuation in coin prices leads to a reduction in principal.
• New project risk: Most new Farm projects enter a death spiral within 6 months.
• Contract Vulnerability: Protocols with bugs in the code occur from time to time.

Target Audience: Experienced players with DeFi knowledge who can quickly identify risks. Beginners should avoid.

5. Mining: Bitcoin mining is nearly impossible

Buying mining machines to mine BTC individually? It's unrealistic by 2026. 70% of the global hash power is concentrated in large mining pools, and individual miners only mine one block every 10 years. GPU mining is also gone, as Ethereum has transitioned to PoS.

Survival: Cloud mining or joining a mining pool, but be careful of scams—many cloud mining platforms are Ponzi schemes.

6. Airdrop: The Lowest Risk of Farming

To attract users, project parties will distribute free tokens to early interactors. You can earn by completing tasks on platforms like CoinMarketCap Earn and Zealy. The earnings are not significant (usually a few dozen dollars), but they are truly free and carry the lowest risk.

Avoid Pitfalls: Only receive from official channels, do not connect to wallets on small websites.

Portfolio Recommendations

Conservative Investor: 60% Staking (ETH/SOL) + 40% Stablecoin Lending Annual yield: 6-10%, extremely low risk

Advanced Investor: 40% Staking + 30% Lending + 20% Yield Farming + 10% Airdrop Annual Yield: 12-20%, requires regular monitoring

Risk Warning: This article does not guarantee returns in any way, the crypto market may experience sudden declines at any time. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.