Update 12 January, 2021: A Good Year, Considering | The Idle Experiment 9

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2020 was a good year.

There, I said it. Well, apart from the pandemic, the lockdowns, the economy, aliens, potential civil wars, fire, murder hornets, and the return of the Elder Gods. Okay, maybe not that last one (yet).

But for the Idle Experiment, 2020 was kind of alright.

We’ve managed almost £1,000 in online earnings in the last year, largely thanks to a certain academic studies site, but there were a few pleasant surprises during the year.

Chief among them is the reason I’ve waited until mid-January to make this 2020 reflection post: Bitcoin. The price of the cryptocurrency has rocketed in the last month to over $30,000. I was waiting in the hope it would cool off a little so to not inflate my progress in this update, but this most recent drop from over $40,000 might be my only chance.

Enough talk, though. Here’s update #9 of the Idle Experiment.

No betrayals this time (I don’t think, anyway)!

In fact, I’ve found a bunch of new passive income apps and sites to fill the gaps left by Embee Meter, Cash Magnet, and Smart Panel.

Toluna paid out my first £35 on PayPal, and I’m a couple months away from earning my second. Considering this is a site I was reluctant to use, having the ability to transform it into a passive income app paying roughly £6 per month has been a godsend.

I’ve also had two payments from Honeygain totalling £27.13. This app is fairly consistently earning between $0.20 and $0.50 per day, which isn’t too bad.

And continuing the theme from last time: Prolific is phenomenal.

The academic studies site has now completely shattered the record set by 20 Cogs, having earned me a staggering £499.84. I had hoped to have over £500 for this update, but instead resigned myself to being annoyingly close instead.

Since last update, I’ve been experimenting with a couple new earners: Streetbees and Neevo.

The former is a short survey app that pays small amounts each time you complete a survey. It’s not terrible, but I find myself constantly forgetting to use it.

As for Neevo, I feel it has potential to be a massive earner for me this year. It’s a micro-task site that pays per task completion, usually around $0.04. Where this site shines is that each available job might consist of hundreds of these micro tasks, allowing you to earn pretty decent amounts of money. I’m still not fully convinced just yet, having only cashed out a total £4.12  from the site, but I have high hopes for this one.

Freebitco.in has been a fantastic earner in the time since last update. Not only has the balance been increasing steadily, but as I mentioned above, the price of Bitcoin has rocketed through its previous all-time-high to well over $30,000. My balance, therefore, now sits at over £200.

They recently introduced a daily ‘Wheel of Fortune’ style game that claims to give you the chance to win a Rolex or up to $15,000 in free BTC. The most I’ve ever won from it so far has been 500 satoshis, but that’s still not terrible! To make use of these spins, just check your daily promotional emails from FreeBitco.in. If you followed my advice in the original post and set yourself up a referral account that plays with mobile data, you’ll have 2 spins per day.

Not to mention the app that allows me to automate Freebitco.in rolls, Bitbot, actually transforms the faucet into a passive income generating app that pays over $12 per month at today’s crazy prices. This is because the app allows you to automate Reward Point purchases, thus allowing you to cash out 0.001 BTC ($35.29) worth of RP every 84 or so days. 

And on RealT, my pounds-per-day have been increasing steadily.

I’ve actually printed a small loss for RealT overall this update, due to the Pound gaining value against the US Dollar (now sitting at $1.36, versus $1.25 last update).

This volatility has mostly been offset by the rental payments, however. For reference, I should have printed a total loss of around £91, but instead I’m sitting pretty safely at only £6.14 down.

I highly recommend reading this post in full to see why RealT is simply amazing for our passive income.

I now own shares in a total of 9 properties on the site, netting me approximately £0.34 per day in rental payments, or £124.10 annually.

I don’t really care too much about volatility between the Pound and US Dollar. Firstly, it’s part of the risk I expected going into RealT; and secondly, long-term its effects will be negligible as I pick up more shares in more properties.

At the rate we’re going with the Idle Experiment, I fully expect to have broken £2,000 by this Summer. Unless something crazy happens, we should easily reach that target.

See you then!

Earnings Update:

Update Total:         £357.11

Previous Updates: £445.48

RealT Purchases: £341.50

Bank Balance: £42.33

FreeBitco.in Balance: 0.00807638 BTC (£208.31)

RealT Holdings: £1186.03

DAI Balance: $15.59 (£11.46)

USDC Balance: $102.64 (£75.47)

Idle Experiment Total: £1523.60

Update 12 January, 2021: A Good Year, Considering | The Idle Experiment 9

Update 10 July, 2020: £1,000! Why Prolific is the Best | The Idle Experiment 8

Update 22 January, 2020: A little too much idle time! | The Idle Experiment 7

Update 18 October, 2018: 20 Cogs Completed | The Idle Experiment

Update 18 September, 2018: Some Time Off, Early-Mid Game Preparations | The Idle Experiment

Update 18 August, 2018: Getting There, Disconnected, and Curious Cat | The Idle Experiment