The whole decentralized finance industry is often called unconventional by tradfi investors. However, there are some methods that seem quite novel or even outlandish to DeFi users. We want to talk about some of the most interesting ways to make money in this sector. While many of the options below may not be considered sound capital allocation targets or even remotely functional, it is fun to talk about unique DeFi investments.
Note that we do not provide financial advice and encourage all our users to do their due diligence. The Rivo platform is doing it for you and provides detailed break downs of the most popular DeFi investments in many categories. If you are interested in parking your capital safely, check out the platform and build a solid passive income stream.
Play-to-earn games have been a massive success in certain regions. For instance, Axie Infinity still boasts great numbers despite falling from grace due to unsustainable economics. The game has over 212 thousand monthly active users and up to 40 thousand concurrently active players. During the peak of its popularity, it had over 2.7 million monthly active players.
P2E games are hardly a reliable source of income but can be fun. However, you must choose them carefully.
Non-fungible tokens are still used by thousands of collectors, gamers, and investors across the world. However, one should not expect their prices to skyrocket. Some NFT collections allow users to enjoy certain perks that can lead to higher returns on other investments.
In the world of DeFi investment, the NFT marketplace category has over $67 million in combined TVL and features 44 protocols. On the other hand, OpenSea has a measly $2.6 million daily trading volume, with average prices rarely exceeding $110.
Now, this is a solid strategy for many crypto enthusiasts who can afford to spend a lot of time hunting for promising opportunities. An airdrop is a gift from a development team that wants to attract users to a new platform. It is usually given to early adopters.Tracking them in real time is hugely important for the success of investment operations. Currently, Atom is one of the best places to go for airdrops. The mainnet has 69 ongoing projects as of March 2025.
Making money by doing what you like is a dream for many people planning to switch to freelancing. If you are a good writer, you can already go to Read.Cash or Hive and earn money by publishing content that pumps up user engagement. Good writers also receive tips from readers.
Content creation is a very competitive domain. Many newcomers struggle to capture an audience and break through all the barriers.
It is hardly an unconventional method in general, but the caveat of receiving cashback in tokens sets it apart from traditional forms of collecting rewards. The selection of viable options is not very large at the moment, with Crypto.com leading the pack. Rebates range from 1% to 8% depending on the spending category.
It is one of the most standard and “vanilla” ways of earning money with cryptocurrencies. Note that you can also check out projects like CryptoMi that have a solid market share and offer a wide range of dynamic rewards with rebates reaching 10% in miles.
Here are some other DeFi investment options for cards if you are interested:
Some crypto enthusiasts believe that these cards are quite useful and convenient for newcomers to the sector.
Here, you can act as a lender or as a borrower. In both cases, you will have options to make money. What you should consider is the level of risk, which changes depending on which side you find yourself on. For instance, it can be incredibly risky to take out an overcollateralized loan to hunt for sky-high APYs. On the other hand, you can lend stablecoins on platforms like Aave and receive stable 5% or more.
These projects are highly reliable and have some of the highest TVLs in the whole ecosystem. The combined total value locked in the category is over $41.5 billion. It overtook Liquid Staking as the best DeFi investment in March 2025.
There are three main ways to make money using these particular instruments:
The biggest barrier to entry for many newcomers is the lack of guiding rails and the novelty of many DeFi protocols that may be too hard to evaluate for proper coverage.
This is not an investment or even a financial activity, but some gamblers are convinced that they can make money gambling in casinos and trying to earn by exploiting rakeback systems as if they are not tuned to take advantage of players. Ethical aspects of earning money on cryptocurrency aside, this option is gaining popularity across the globe.
In June 2024, the total volume of crypto bets rose by 83.6% year-on-year. The size of the industry grew from $50 million to almost $250 million in just one 5 years in 2024.
Among DeFi investment options, yield farming holds a very special place. It is a novel method that many tradfi investors struggle to utilize properly. Without any assistance and experience, it is quite hard to get into it. You can use the Rivo app to search for the best options among various protocols, some of which are yield farming pools.Here, the importance of research and analysis before investing is higher than in many other DeFi investment approaches. Again, Rivo is doing all the dirty work for you by collecting data, gathering actionable insights, and doing your due diligence for you. Right now, you can invest in one of the hottest pools, like the Superform USDC Fixed Yield pool with a 16% APY.
Staking is another option available only to crypto investors. Staking comes in many forms and colors. It means that investors have to be smart about doing their research. For instance, PoS networks offer rewards to validators. Other chains and protocols may use the term staking to describe a relatively simple investment strategy.
We strongly recommend starting by investing in time-tested options like direct Ethereum staking (which can be expensive at 32 ETH per stake or $69,650 in March 2025) or staking on Atrbitrum. Some people may be interested in liquid staking on platforms like Lido, which is offering 2.98% APY on ETH.
We could list all the important factors that a potential investor should cycle in their head while looking at lists of available investment strategies on Rivo or aggregators like DefiLlama. However, the one and only working approach is to do your own research, reading as much as possible, and experimenting.
It can be a good idea to avoid protocols with low TVL numbers and take a very cautious stance when it comes to investment protocols that you do not understand. The future of non-standard ways of making money in the crypto industry is murky as we still lack the necessary data to evaluate them properly. However, you can find success by exploring them early while limiting the size of investable capital!
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