This guide shows you all the best ways to Buy Ethereum.
Don’t worry - we’ll only show you ways to buy ETH that we’ve actually tested.
So…if you’re looking to buy Ethereum quickly, easily, and cheaply, look no further!
Read on…
Chapter 1
There are many ways to buy Ether with a bank account – and this usually comes with the lowest fees.
eToro is a trading platform and crypto exchange. It supports Ethereum and many other coins.
Deposits can be made quickly via bank transfer, credit card, SEPA, NETELLER, PayPal and more. It also offers unique features like copy trading.
Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Cryptoasset investing is unregulated in some EU countries and the UK. No consumer protection. Your capital is at risk.
You can buy Ethereum with Bitcoin on nearly any cryptocurrency exchange. This is because most of the global Ethereum trading volume is actually done in the ETH/BTC pair, and not the ETH/USD pair.
For US customers, Coinbase Pro has some of the highest volume and is a convenient way to turn your BTC into ETH, especially if you already used Coinbase Pro or Coinbase to initially buy Bitcoin. If so, you won’t even need to create a new account. You can just immediately start trading your bitcoins into ETH.
In order to use Coinbase Pro, you have to sign up for a Coinbase account first.
Coinbase Pro had a flash crash of Ethereum a while back, but Coinbase paid everyone back for any losses.
Paypal has finally made it possible to buy Ethereum on the platform directly.
There are some serious limitations on Ethereum purchases in Paypal though. You cannot withdrawal the Ethereum to your own wallet and you cannot even send it to other Paypal users. It is mostly just a way to speculate on the price of Ethereum. You can only sell it back to Paypal.
If you want to buy Ethereum using Paypal but be able to withdrawal it, you can now use eToro to buy Ethereum and hold the keys, unless you live in the United States.
If you don’t live in the US, here are the steps to Buy Ethereum with Paypal on eToro (the same steps apply to Neteller and Skrill as well).
Select “deposit funds” on the main dashboard, and then choose your preferred payment method, entering the amount you want to deposit.
You’ll be redirected to Paypal to login (the same if you choose Neteller or Skrill) - log in to your account.
Within a few minutes, your funds should be showing in your account and you can proceed to buy Ethereum.
If you live in the US, the only way to buy Ethereum with Paypal is to buy Bitcoin using PayPal, and then use the Bitcoins to buy Ethereum. You can easily buy Bitcoin using Paypal on Local Bitcoins. Once you have Bitcoin, you can use an exchange like Coinbase Pro to swap the Bitcoin for Ethereum.
The best way to buy Ethereum with cash is to use Localcryptos.com. It is the same as localbitcoins.com, but with support for Litecoin and Ethereum sales.
As seen on the screen shot sample below:
Chapter 2
Decentralized Ethereum exchanges are probably the best option for you if you’re looking to swap only between coins and ERC20 tokens.
You can swap tokens without the need to actually store your coins on an exchange, which removes the chance that you will be hacked or lose your coins in any similar way.
Watch out for fake “decentralized” exchanges which are not actually decentralized.
We’ve highlighted some of the best decentralized ETH exchanges below.
Uniswap is one of the fastest growing and most popular DEXs on the market.
On Uniswap, users can trade between various trading pairs via Uniswap’s smart contracts without handing over their coins to a centralized exchange. Instead they are deposited into the smart contract which then handles the trades.
Trading fees on Uniswap can be quite high, but these high fees encourage more users to deposit coins into the exchanges liquidity pools which brings down the fees.
What are liquidity pools?
To solve the issue of liquidity that many decentralized exchanges experience, Uniswap created liquidity pools where a user can deposit coins from each side of the trading pair and they can earn fees in exchange for the service. For instance, if I own ETH and BAT, I can deposit equal parts ETH and BAT into the ETH/BAT liquidity pool, which then helps makes other trades between ETH and BAT easier to execute.
Beware!
It is worth noting that Uniswap has experienced issues with stolen coins in some of the smart contracts, made possible by coding errors during the creation of the contracts. This is unfortunately quite common in ETH and in smart contracts generally, so it’s not at all surprising and users should beware.
ForkDelta is the most popular decentralized Ethereum exchange. It allows you to trade ETH for other ERC20 tokens. So, you can’t really buy ETH if it’s your first time but if you already own some tokens it’s a nice way to exchange them for ETH.
ForkDelta is somewhat complex, so here is a good video explainer:
Note: ForkDelta is a fork of an exchange called EtherDelta. It uses the same code. But many people were having issues with Etherdelta so someone forked the code and made a new exchange.
ERC dEX is a new decentralized Ethereum exchange. It has an excellent UI and makes swapping tokens in a trustless manner very easy.
ERC dEX also works well from your phone, which adds convenience to your trading. Its fees are 0.1% for maker and 0.2% for taker.
IDEX is new but has decent volume for some lesser known tokens. It’s currently doing about $8 million in volume per day, but has coins you cannot find anywhere else.
Now you have your Ethereum in your account on the platform.
Congratulations - mission accomplished!
But we really aren’t done yet.
You see, exchanges aren’t very secure. Your ETH could easily get hacked!
To prevent this, you should withdraw it at this time.
To do so, you’ll need an Ethereum Wallet.
Never store your ETH on an exchange! Instead, always withdrawal your Ethereum to an offline crypto wallet like the Ledger Nano X or any other wallet that you control.
Getting started with Ethereum wallets is a confusing process.
Luckily, we’re making it easy to decide which Ethereum wallet is best for you.
The Ledger Nano X and TREZOR are the best options for secure long term storage.
The best way to backup an Ethereum wallet is to create a recovery seed (also referred to as a ‘recovery phrase’ or ‘seed phrase’). The recovery seed is a 12-24 word series that you input into a new wallet to retrieve coins at an address. If you lose your wallet or it gets destroyed, then you need this phrase to get your coins back.
There are some warnings to be aware of when it comes to backing up any wallet.
Anyone who knows or finds this recovery phrase can take your coins. You need to hide it somewhere other people won't find it. That means you shouldn't write it down on any electronic device, especially if that device connects to the internet.
You also want to protect it against fire and flood. If you lose your wallet in a natural disaster, you want the backup to be written down on something stronger than paper. This is where steel wallet backups come in.
Colin Aulds Founder, Billfodl BackupsSteel backups let you ‘write’ down your seed in fire and corrosion resistant metal. You can find our top picks on our steel backup page.
And, just one more reminder, your exchange account–like Coinbase or Binance–is NOT a wallet! Do not leave cryptocurrency on an exchange. If you need to do so for more than a day use two-factor authentication.
Once you send to your wallet you can check the status of your payment in your wallet or by pasting the transaction ID into a block explorer like EtherScan.
Chapter 3
This section will answer the most common questions about Ethereum and how to buy it.
Ethereum is more than a cryptocurrency. It’s an open source shared world computing platform. A ‘world computer’ that allows for the decentralized verification of transactions for any Turing-viable implementation. Thanks to Ethereum, Blockchain technologies are now easy to employ without having to reinvent the wheel.
Ethereum right now uses PoW mining to secure its chain.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, stressed that his idea was fueled by the desire to “Avoid the swiss-army knife protocol.” That is to say that use-case specific Blockchain solutions were expending unnecessary effort on the building of equivalent infrastructure. Here Ethereum enters the picture.
With Ethereum, Buterin created the first universal application of the principles underlying Bitcoin. Instead of using Blockchain just as a way of establishing/providing value, Ethereum offers the ability to use that technology in a Turing complete environment. Where Bitcoin implements Blockchain technology in combination with proof of work to form a currency, Ethereum’s value is derived from the ability to create universal applications.
We also see differences between the way that Ethereum and Bitcoin implemented their decentralized currency. Most notably, BTC supply has a universal cap whereas ETH supply is capped yearly at 18 million ETH but is otherwise unbound.
Ethereum and Ethereum Classic are different versions of the same Blockchain. The fork served as damage control to the issue caused by the DAO hack in 2016 and was ultimately fueled by ideological differences between early Ethereum workers. As DAO collected 150 million USD worth of ETH but almost 50 million USD in ETC were hacked, about 80% of miners decided to hard-fork the Blockchain. The other miners remained with the initial Blockchain which we now call Ethereum Classic. That is why there now are two Ethereum-based currencies that can be used to trade.
Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin, who also helped start Bitcoin Magazine.
Ethereum launched on July 30th, 2015 by Vitalik Buterin.
Ethereum has a standard wallet, called Mist, that is used as a gateway for developers to use ÐApps. Ethereum wallets act much like BTC wallets. You can use the tools integral to the system or use the convenience of other wallets that wrap the software in a more user friendly way.
A legal disclaimer on the Ethereum page jokingly requires you not to be a ‘jerk’ and to be responsible for your own computer security. So there is the caveat of exposing yourself (although securely) to a massive network of active computers. But that’s a risk you’re exposing yourself to anyway by using the Internet.
Other than the Mist Wallet, you can also handle Ethereum with online wallets like MyEtherWallet.com, EthereumWallet.com and EthAddress. CLI (Command Line Interface) wallets like Geth provide power-user functionality. An Ethereum hardware wallet is also an option, like Ledger’s Nano S.
Like any market, it’s impossible to know the right time to buy.
One strategy you can use is dollar cost averaging. This means you split your buys over a period of time to even out in case the price rises or falls substantially.
Ethereum is more volatile than Bitcoin. That makes it even more risky.
Ethereum is also a much more complicated codebase than Bitcoin’s which means there are a lot more things that could go wrong or be exploited.
Like all tradable assets, the value of Ethereum changes all the time. The value of Ethereum is also different from country to country and exchange to exchange.
The reason buying Ether can be slow is because the traditional banking system is very slow. Credit card and bank payments are all very slow and most exchanges must wait for these payments to clear before you can get your Ether.
Of course, you can use most of the exchanges mentioned above to sell Ether.
Yes, Ether is divisible to many decimal places so you don’t have to buy an entire Ether.
Anyone is free to use Ethereum. If you can find an exchange in your country, there is no reason you should not be able to buy.
It depends what your goals are. Mining Ethereum has more up front costs, while buying is the fastest way to acquire some.
It depends what your goals are. For low fees, try a bank transfer. For privacy, you will have to buy bitcoins privately and then buy Ether on an exchange. For speed, try credit card.
If you plan on storing your Ether long term, move your coins immediately to a secure Ether hardware wallet.
For small amounts you can use any online wallet although they are less secure.
No, at this time Cash App only supports Bitcoin and not Ether.
It depends on how you are buying with cash.
If you have a Bitcoin ATM in your area, then the process can be very fast since once you arrive to a Bitcoin ATM your purchase is basically instant. Note that ATMs have very high fees at around 5-10%, although purchasing Ethereum with that Bitcoin can be very cheap. Also note that if you buy from an ATM you are buying in a very private way, if you care about that.
If you buy with cash using something like LocalBitcoins or Bitquick, the speed can depend on the availability of sellers in your area. Using these two sites you can buy with cash deposit in the USA and most of Europe. The fees are usually about 1%, so much lower than ATMs although sometimes less private since some buyers on LocalBitcoins may require ID, and BitQuick also requires ID verification from the start.
Some Bitcoin ATMs do not support Ethereum, but these are somewhat rare. For the most part, Bitcoin ATM’s only let you buy (and sometimes sell) Bitcoin. The best way to check is to use our Bitcoin ATM map and then select Ethereum as your desired crypto and see if anything comes up.
The main benefit is privacy. If you don’t care about that, then try to buy Ethereum using your bank account or credit card, where you can buy larger amounts, buy faster, and also pay less in fees than buying bitcoins with at an ATM and trading that in for Ether.
Ethereum is one of the most heavily debated cryptocurrencies. Some claim it’s useless and some say it will power the internet in 10 years.
Which is it?
No one knows. However, many people are buying Ethereum and speculating that it will turn out to be a success. No one knows what will happen in the end.
The DAO was one of Ethereum’s defining moments and set some bad precedents for its future.
About $34 million of ETH was lost in the DAO bug. The Ethereum devs decided to “fork” the ETH network to create a new network and unlock the lost funds. This is, essentially, a “bailout”.
Since Ethereum claims to have unstoppable applications, many are questioning what the point is if the developers can decide at any point to reverse transactions that they don’t like.
Another main issue raised about Ethereum is the Parity wallet bug.
$169 million worth of ether was locked when a contract went wrong and resulted in a loss of funds. Now, once again, there is talks to bail out the money with a new “fork” of the Ethereum network.
This would be the second time the Ethereum developers have decided to reverse a transaction. This is what has many people claiming Ethereum is controlled by developers and not actually decentralized.
No one really knows. Vitalik and his team are working on Eth 2.0 to make the switch, but he keeps delaying the release.
Only time will tell when the switch is made - if ever. Some think it will never happen because Ethereum is too complicated.
ERC20 tokens are assets that are issued on top of the Ethereum blockchain. ERC20 tokens are NOT Ethereum, but separate assets.
Gas is essentially the equivalent of a network fee in Bitcoin. It is the fee miners charge to include your transaction in a block. Gas is denominated in gwei, which is sub-unit of ether, much like satoshis are a sub-unit of Bitcoin. One Gwei is equal to 0.000000001 ether.
There is no “best” ETH exchange. You will have to research and find out which one is best for you based on your country and payment method. Some exchanges only work in the USA, for example, so you’ll have to make sure that the ETH exchange you are trying to use works in your country.
As of this writing, there are currently more than 110 million (110,000,000) Ether in existence. However that number is constantly growing.
According to Bitrates,
5 New Ether are created with each block, meaning 5 Ether are created about every 14-15 seconds. There is no cap to the Ethereum Blockchain.
Stocks are commonly searched with reference to Ethereum. Truth is, Ethereum is not a stock. However, as it represents value based on a free-market supply-demand structure, Ethereum, just like other cryptocurrency blockchain implementations, effectively acts the same way a stock would. There is, however, an important difference to stress. Unlike stocks, Ethereum’s decentralized nature makes it less malleable by specific market forces and fluctuations, making it act more like a diversified asset. Even if Ethereum’s core team disappeared from the face of the earth, Ethereum tokens should, in principle, retain their value (at least until the lack of updates would make it fall out of date). Stocks, on the other hand, live and breathe by the company of which they hold value.
As a result, stock exchanges all over the world are introducing Ethereum into their trading options.
Some wallets are not updated to send transactions with the proper fee.
Our guide on the best crypto wallets features wallets with good fee estimators. Read it here!
Chapter 4
Buying Ethereum is easier than you might have thought.
This guide is all you need to buy ETH quickly, easily, and cheaply from reliable sources we’ve tested.
If you found this guide useful, we’d love for you to share it with others.
And if we missed a great buying option, we’d love for you to let us know by hitting that contact button!
Jordan Tuwiner is the founder of BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com. His work has been featured in The Guardian, International Business Times, Forbes, VentureBeat, CoinDesk and many other top Bitcoin media outlets. His articles are read by millions of people each year looking for the best way to buy Bitcoin and crypto in their country.
He has also written extensively about the history, technology, and business of the crypto world. Jordan is also the creator of some of the internet's most famous Bitcoin pages, including The Quotable Satoshi and Bitcoin Obituaries.
To learn more about Jordan, see his full bio.
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