Tuga has never bought anything. Everything she possesses arrived through one of three routes: it was given to her, she performed a service she considers valuable (existing, decoratively, near me), or she took it. The economy of a cat is entirely non-monetary and she is doing fine.

Most people's mental model of acquiring bitcoin has exactly one route in it: open an exchange account, connect a bank, buy. That works, and I've written about doing it well. But it is one door among several, and the others have properties the exchange route doesn't.

1. Get Paid in It

The most direct route, and the most underused: invoice in bitcoin for work you already do.

If you freelance, consult, teach, design, translate, or write, adding bitcoin as a payment option costs you nothing and occasionally finds a client who prefers it — often an international one for whom a bank transfer is slow and expensive. You send a Lightning invoice or an on-chain address; they pay; you're done. No account opening, no waiting period, no withdrawal limits.

Two practical notes. Price the work in your own currency and convert at the moment of invoicing, so you're not accidentally taking a price bet on a job you already did. And decide in advance what share you keep versus convert, because "I'll decide later" tends to mean deciding with the chart open.

2. Earn It in Small Amounts

There is a whole tier below invoicing, and it's how most people actually get their first sats.

• Tips and content platforms. Publishing on platforms where readers tip in crypto — this one included — pays in small amounts that accumulate. The sums are modest. The education is not: your first sats arriving from a stranger who read something you wrote teaches you more about what this is for than any article.
• Bounties and small contracts. Bug bounties, translation work, small development tasks — corners of the bitcoin economy routinely pay in bitcoin.
• Selling something. A second-hand item, a digital product, a print. Accepting bitcoin for one real transaction converts the whole thing from theory to plumbing.

The amounts are small and that's fine. The purpose isn't accumulation — it's that earning bitcoin builds a completely different intuition from buying it. You stop thinking in entry prices and start thinking in units received for work done.

3. Peer to Peer

You can also buy directly from another person, through platforms that hold funds in escrow while both sides complete their side of the trade.

The honest assessment: it's more work, sometimes at a worse price, and it carries counterparty risk that an exchange absorbs for you. The escrow protects you from the obvious theft; it does not protect you from a confusing dispute, a slow counterparty, or a payment method that can be reversed after you've released the coins.

Use established platforms with real reputation systems, start with small trades, never release escrow before funds are genuinely settled on your side, and never let anyone move you to a private chat. It's a legitimate route used by many people. It is not the beginner-friendly one.

4. Mine It

Covered in more depth elsewhere, but for completeness: mining is an acquisition route, and for home users a poor one economically unless you're reusing the heat or treating a solo pool as a lottery ticket. Worth knowing it exists. Not worth building a plan on.

5. What This Does and Doesn't Get You

Let me be precise, because this topic attracts wishful thinking.

What it does:

• Removes the exchange as a dependency and a delay.
• Avoids repeatedly linking your identity to purchases at one company — though your counterparties, your invoices and your bank records still exist.
• Builds units through work rather than through timing, which sidesteps the entire "waiting for a better price" problem.
• Teaches you the payment side of bitcoin, which buyers never learn.

What it doesn't:

• It does not remove your tax obligations. Bitcoin received as payment for work is, in most places, income at the value on the day you received it — exactly as if you'd been paid in anything else. Rules vary; check yours. Anyone framing this route as a way around that is giving you advice that ends badly.
• It doesn't make you anonymous. The person who paid you knows who you are.
• It doesn't remove price risk. You're now holding a volatile asset you earned instead of a volatile asset you bought.

The Point

The cat economy is not better than ours. It's just a reminder that "acquire" and "purchase" are different words, and that we've collapsed them so thoroughly that most people never consider the other doors.

You don't have to buy your way in. You can be paid your way in, for work you were doing anyway, by people who'd rather pay this way — and the sats you earn that way tend to be the ones you understand best.

Don't just buy it. Get paid in it. 🐾⚡

Not financial or tax advice — I feed a cat and write about Bitcoin, which qualifies me for neither profession. Income received in bitcoin is taxable in most jurisdictions; check the rules where you actually live.

Tags: Bitcoin, Lightning Network, Cryptocurrency, Freelancing, Self Custody