Posted 13th January 2022

Do Cryptocurrencies Pay Dividends?

wallet with crypto flowing out

A dividend is a share of profit paid by the company to its investors and shareholders.

Currently, the interest rate that you get from banks is negligible, and stocks usually pay between 4-6%. Some coins with a higher market cap pay up to 10% and crypto stable coins pay up to 20%, while on some cryptocurrencies some people have earned up to 100% per year.

Usually, when people think about dividends they think of those that traditionally come from stock market investments. Crypto dividends appeared in 2018, with the introduction of decentralised finance. This gave people the ability to do yield farming, staking, liquidity providing, lending, and earn interest on their investment.

What are crypto dividends?

Crypto dividends are rewards that are earned for holding or performing a specific action with different assets. The amount of dividend granted is frequently based upon the amount of cryptocurrency the investor holds or, if they receive dividends for performing a specific action, this could be through staking or claiming a reward on their platform.

The interest rate is usually represented in annual percentage yield (or APY) and represents the returns over a period of a year.

earning crypto dividends different ways

How to earn crypto dividends

When it comes to the stock market, investors are paid from the profit that a company generates. In the cryptocurrency markets, there are many different principles of how and when dividends are paid. The most popular ways of earning dividends in the blockchain space are by staking, yield farming, lending, and airdrops.

  • Staking is used in proof of stake protocols to verify transactions on the blockchain network. The number of coins you stake usually correlates with the number of transactions you verify and you receive rewards based on that.

  • Yield farming is when you provide liquidity on a trading pair and you gain interest based on the usage of this trading pair. Usually, the returns on yield farming are higher but there is a risk of losing your investment if there is a drastic change in price. This is called impermanent loss.

  • Crypto lending or borrowing is where you lend your cryptocurrency asset for a rate of interest that is repaid after a certain time. Usually, people offer their ETH or BTC as collateral to take stable coins or fiat which they can use to buy more crypto, gold, or even real estate.

  • Crypto airdrops are distributions of specific coins or tokens to a community, usually in response to performing some action required by the company that offers the airdrop. The biggest airdrop was performed by Decred and the users that are still holding their tokens are estimated to have around $500,000.

As with investing, it is important to consider the extent of the risk posed, as well as things like safety or “lock-in” terms. With stablecoins like Kinesis’ KAU and KAG, there is the added benefit of securing value over time with the currencies backed by physical precious metals, in addition to no “lock-in” terms, that gives utility and liquidity to users’ investments.

Crypto dividends methods and coins

Depending on your preference, you should choose a combination of options that will combine high returns for the risk you are willing to take. Here are some of the best options for earning interest on your crypto. 

There are many ways and platforms where you can earn dividends on your assets. Make sure to do your own research, especially if you are looking to earn interest on some smaller coins.

trading vs dividends

Trading vs dividends

Daily traders try to identify good entry and exit points and execute the trades from a few minutes to a few hours. Swing traders are doing the same thing, but usually, the trades last from a few days up to a few months. Since the frequency of the trades in swing trading is lower they are usually aiming for a bigger return per trade.

In today’s markets, crypto dividends can be high, and just by holding or staking assets, investors can outperform most traders. Also, volatility is decreasing over time which lowers the potential for traders to identify good entry and exit points and get the same returns as they were able to do in the past. Due to this, most people will fare better by staking and earning passive income than trading.

Future of crypto dividends


This publication is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation, offering or recommendation of any security, commodity, derivative, investment management service or advisory service and is not commodity trading advice. This publication does not intend to provide investment, tax or legal advice on either a general or specific basis.