Introduction to Future Earn

Getting Started (‘Act-to’Earn’)

In the future how we make money will look different.

This may be difficult for some people to imagine, but in the future we will get paid for doing things we normally do in our daily lives. As one leading Future of Work thinker put it, ‘we are heading towards a world where work is indistinguishable from leisure.’

So, imagine a life where you earn 20+ revenue streams from companies that value our time, attention or contribution. Whether you are walking, watching or connecting. This is already happening.

Why start a newsletter?

There were three triggers for me to start Future Earn:

1. The emergence of the idea of ‘Play-to-Earn’ which signified the first example of playing a computer game to earn money on a game called Axie Infinity.

2. Watching a discussion with Dror Poleg (quoted above) who tied this back to the future of work. ie. he made the connection for me that this is not just a flash in the pan, it’s a window to our future lives.

3. I started using a ‘Walk-to-Earn’ app in 2023.

Plus, no one I could find was covering this trend besides people focused either on gaming or youtube based ‘earn money online’ influencers, when in fact it has much broader implications.

What do you mean we will earn in different ways?

So everyone understands the world is rapidly changing and becoming more digital. The impact on how we earn money has been coming for a while, and to help explain it I will describe two groups:

_{The Mainstream}

Most people of working age would understand the splintering of income streams - we have moved from having a single job, to having a main job and a side gig, or multiple casual jobs. Think about the hospitality worker who also drives an Uber, or the white collar professional who also monetizes their fashion related instagram account.

If not another job, then the ability to monetize existing assets is another example of this trend - rent out an empty room / house on Airbnb, rent out an empty carspace or sell solar energy back to the grid - it’s just another way to earn income from assets that previously only had one use.

_{The Minority (Early Adopters)}

In the world of crypto, earning income (or tokens) is a well established, albeit still emerging activity. There are a number of platforms where you connect your phone or cypto wallet, then do something just to earn tokens. Going forward I’ll summarise this as ‘Act-to-Earn’ with current examples including walking, driving, web browsing, betting on martial arts competitions and contributing your computer processing to the network.

I am not talking about investing in or speculating on crypto itself - there are plenty of other people who offer commentary on that - what I want to do is concentrate on these emerging ways to earn income. To see if they work, to find out if they are legit, get to know the teams behind them and ultimately help you identify opportunites to help earn extra income. Yes, there is a cryptocurrency attached to each project and it has a real world value and can be traded - but I’m making a clear distinction here between trying to buy it as an investor versus trying to earn it as a user.

Also keep in mind that in 2023, roughly 400 million people had invested in crypto, that’s about 5% of the global population. The majority of those invest in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and other tokens. My guess is that only a minority of the 400 million are actively participating in these new Act-to-Earn opportunities.

Hence - we are early and if you are reading this, you are early.

My Objectives

As a rough guide, I want an 80/20 split so that 80% of what I write about is delving into the money making opportunities and 20% is exploring this cultural / future of work related change (because it is going to be fascinating).

My goal is to immerse myself in these opportunties (so you don’t have to) by:

1. Maintaining a list of all the opportunities I am aware of (I’ll share with readers in future);

2. Deep diving into these, including using them myself and sharing my earnings, doing my due diligence and where possible meeting the teams;

3. Making sure you know about any new or upcoming projects and how to get involved (hopefully with extra rewards for early adoption).

I am already using 5+ of these platforms, but I am anticipating that in future there will be many of them and it will be increasingly hard to know what’s good / bad, and where you should direct your limited attention.

Early adopters will likely make the biggest gains, and in 20 years we will look back on this as the beginning of what future earnings look like.

Whether you are interested conceptually, or looking for additional ways to earn money, I hope you will join me on this journey.

Jack