What is the future of passive income

As technology evolves and the global economy transforms, passive income also will undergo changes in the future.
In this post, I will explore the future of passive income, what can be emerging trends and check strategies for building sustainable streams of passive income.
These are only my personal thoughts on what I think might be the future of passive income.

Introduction

In the early days, passive income was only available through rental properties and dividend investing. The digital (r)evolution has opened a variety of possibilities to set up passive income streams.
Nowadays, thanks to the internet, you can reach the whole world. Whereas before, passive income relied on local sources, you can now have clients worldwide.
New technologies like AI and blockchain are still in the early stages. These technologies have the potential to revolutionize various industries, creating new opportunities for passive income.

7 Possible opportunities

1. Digital assets and blockchain :

The digital revolution has unleashed a wave of innovation that is transforming the way you can generate passive income. Cryptocurrencies, Defi (Decentralized Finance) are the most well-known and offer lots of possibilities like:

Staking

With Proof of Stake (PoS), users can lock their coins in their wallets to help validate transactions. In return, they get rewards, most typically in the form of additional coins.

Lending and Yield farming

Defi platforms can offer smart contracts to facilitate lending, borrowing, and yield farming (here, yield farmers deposit tokens into a liquidity pool). Users lend out their cryptocurrency to earn interest or in the case of yield farming, they get a reward for providing liquidity.

Dangers

As this is a very new technology, there are no regulations around this field of finance. There are scammers or people with bad intentions out on the internet who are trying to get rich by starting a lending platform and then all of a sudden, shut it down and disappear with your crypto (see FTX).
From personal experience, I know staking and yield farming can be a good source of passive income. But you need to have a (small) starting capital and have no stress as the markets are very volatile.

2. Subscription models :

With the rise of subscription-based services across different industries like media streaming, software, and conh3subtitleer goods, you can generate passive income through recurring monthly subscriptions.
You let users pay for a service you provide. This can be an (online) piece of software that you have written or premium content on your multimedia channels offering your subscribers a monthly physical item from your shop or giving your subscribers access to special events. Possibilities are endless
But the landscape of subscription models will also see some evolutions. I predict in the near future you will find online subscription marketplaces where users can discover, compare, and manage subscriptions.
It also will become easier to give tailor-made subscriptions like tiered pricing, and pay-as-you-use plans.

3. Automation and A.I. :

The evolution of AI and automation has the potential to create new opportunities for creating passive income streams. Here are some ways in which they can contribute to passive income generation:

A.I. driven investment strategies

A.I. algorithms can analyze gigantic amounts of data to identify investment opportunities, optimize portfolio allocations, and automate trading strategies.
Robo advisors will use A.I. to provide you personalized investment advice, potentially generating passive income through capital gains, dividends, and interest.

Algorithmic trading

Algorithmic (or automated) trading involves pre-programmed instructions to execute trades based on predefined criteria. These algorithms continuously monitor market conditions, identify patterns, and execute trades at high speed.
Note from the author: I once made a crypto-trading bot and it is working better than expected. Until a given moment where I lost more than 70% due to the fact that I forgot to enter a 'stop button'.
And again, nobody can predict the future. You can never tell what will happen next based on past data, there are so many conditions that you can't program. But if your algorithm has a profit/loss percentage of 51%, you will make money (if you play it safe or otherwise it will become gambling).

Content creation

I write all my blog posts myself, and I do lots of research for each article, but I can not neglect new technologies like ChatGpt. These NLP's (Natural Language Processing) can generate hundreds of blog posts in a few minutes.
AI-generated content can attract website traffic, add revenue, and affiliate sales, creating passive income streams for content creators.
My personal opinion about AI-generated content: I still believe in self-written content based on my own research. There might always be a chance that Google might recognize your content as not human and block it. And why would people visit your content as they can find exactly the same on ChatGPT.
I am still convinced that people will look for real content and not for just facts given to them by a robot.

4. Real estate :

Real estate has always been a cornerstone of passive income strategies and in an era of digital evolution, new opportunities are emerging like real estate crowdfunding, REITs, and property management platforms.
Platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, ... have made it so much easier to rent out your house or even a single room of your house on a short-term basis.
There are even platforms where you can rent out parking space or even a part of your garden to people who like gardening but don't have a garden.
And in some countries, real estate investments can offer tax advantages. These tax advantages can enhance the overall returns and tax efficiency of real estate portfolios.
Real estate is the most important asset you can have, according to Robert Kiyosaki.

5. E-commerce and online stores :

Automation software and tools make it much easier for entrepreneurs to manage and set up their e-commerce stores. Many tasks can already be automated, like order processing, inventory management, and customer support. This way, sellers can focus more on growth and expansion, thus growing their passive income stream.
Thanks to the internet, the whole world can be your client. With the right marketing strategies and product offerings, you can attract people from around the world and generate income 24/7.
By harnessing automation, scalability, and niche marketing strategies, you can build a successful e-commerce business, paving the way for sustainable passive income streams in the future.

6. NFT's :

Ok, I could have put this under point 1 as it is technically spoken based on blockchain technology. But I decided to give it special attention as it serves a specific purpose.
NFT's or Non-Fungible Tokens are assets that have been tokenized via a blockchain (most popular blockchain for NFT's is the Ethereum blockchain). These tokens are unique identifiers which are stored on a blockchain (content on a blockchain can never be changed) and the assets themselves are stored in another place.
An NFT allows the buyer to own the original item (it contains a built-in authentication mechanism which serves as proof of ownership).
Everything can be tokenized, the most popular example of NFT's are 'pictures' but you can also have songs as NFT or even a house. NFT real estate is in this case the digital ownership of a property while the traditional (physical) ownership of a property goes via legal contracts.
Believe it or not, these NFT's are perfect for generating passive income via royalties or staking.

1. Royalties :

Creators can get royalties every time their NFT gets resold.
You can put in the original contract that goes with the NFT that on every sell of your product, you get 20% of the selling price. Can you imagine how much passive income this generates over time? Of course, as with everything, you need to have a product that people want to buy.

2. Staking and governance :

Some NFT projects incorporate staking mechanisms or governance tokens that allow holders to participate in decision-making processes and earn rewards that way.

7. Education and courses :

If you are passionate about something or have expertise in specific topic, it will become very easy to mentize your knowledge and passion. By leveraging automation and technology, you can start building scalabe and sustainable passive income streams.
When your course it created, technology allows you to automate many aspects of course delivery and management such as enrollment, payment and content delivery. It can be scaled to reach millions of people with requiring additional time from you.
And don't think you only can make courses about technical stuff, there is limitless range of topics you can make a course about. From technical skills like coding and graphic design to soft skills like mentorship, communication, positivity guide, ... If you create evergreen content, this can generate passive income streams for years.
Nowadays, people like to be part of (online) communities, so this is also a way to monetize your knowledge or passion (by offering paid memberships). Or create an eBook from your course, another way to create passive income.

Conclusion

Predicting the future with certainty is impossible, but the future of passive income will for sure be shaped by a combination of technical advancements, changing consumer behaviour and global economic trends.
Best you can do is to keep updated with these emerging technologies like AI and automation. These technologies will offer new opportunities for you to create passive income streams and also will make work easier for you.
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