Here is a quick guide to acquiring Ether in just a few minutes.
Which platform should I choose to buy Ethereum?
To buy Ethereum, you need to use a cryptocurrency exchange platform. When making your choice, there are many criteria to consider: purchase and withdrawal fees, other services offered, security, registration with authorities, etc. The cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain is called Ether and is symbolized by the letters ETH.
If you are new to the world of crypto-currencies and investing, ease of use is undoubtedly the most important criterion in order for you to buy ETH.
Where else can I buy Ethereum?
Almost all other cryptocurrency exchange platforms offer Ethereum, as it is the 2nd most capitalized crypto. So you can buy ETH on Binance, Bitpanda, Kraken, SwissBorg and many others.
All these platforms work differently regarding withdrawal fees, deposit fees, or offering services such as staking, which allows you to generate a passive return with ETH.
Please note that if you bought ETH on eToro, you can simply send them to another platform and start staking, like Binance for example.
What is the Ethereum blockchain (ETH)?
Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain platform, known for its native cryptocurrency: Ether (ETH). The Ethereum blockchain, which is one of the most popular in the world, can be used by anyone who wants to create a decentralized application, through the use of smart contracts.
The Ethereum blockchain has its own token, the ETH. This token is the fuel for the entire ecosystem and allows to pay transaction fees and services deployed on the network.
The blockchain solution of choice for developers, Ethereum has conquered the cryptocurrency world in just a few years and its ETH token has almost always followed the king Bitcoin, holding the 2nd position of the most capitalized cryptos.
Scalable, programmable, secure and decentralized, the Ethereum blockchain is currently used as the basis for a large number of protocols and applications: decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Play-to-Earn games, etc.
With Ethereum, anyone can create their own token. These cryptocurrencies follow the principles established by the Ethereum blockchain and take the form of assets that can be exchanged on this blockchain.
A multitude of assets are therefore entirely dependent on the Ethereum blockchain and do not have their own infrastructure. Among these tokens are some big names in the industry that are highly capitalized:
- The stablecoins USDT, USDC or DAI;
- The side chain polygon ;
- Le Shiba Inu (SHIB) ;
- The UNI of the Uniswap platform;
- Le LINK des oracles Chainlink ;
- and thousands of others.
Is it a good idea to buy Ethereum in 2023?
In 2022, the Ethereum blockchain underwent the most significant update in its history: The Merge. This major update completely changed one facet of the network: its energy consumption.
Before The Merge, Ethereum ensured the security and operation of its blockchain with proof-of-work consensus. This method is very energy consuming and costly. To alleviate this problem, the developers decided to migrate to proof-of-stake consensus, which reduced Ethereum’s energy consumption by more than 99%.
Reducing The Merge update to this would not be fair. Indeed, The Merge is the beginning of big changes to come for Ethereum. This is the 1st major update of a long series, with important changes :
- improved scalability ;
- fee reduction;
- storage optimization ;
- and many others.
Further updates are planned during 2023 with the Shanghai update which should release a large amount of stored ethers to secure the protocol.
Also note that ETH is the 2nd most capitalized cryptocurrency in the market, just behind Bitcoin, and that the Ethereum blockchain remains the most widely used in the industry to date.
In the long term, ETH could therefore prove promising, although this cryptocurrency is obviously sensitive to bear markets. The bear market of 2021 / 2022 did not spare it. The token has fallen from its all-time high of around $4,900 to almost $1,300 in less than 12 months.
Obviously, we encourage you to do more research on Ethereum before deciding whether or not you should buy Ether in 2022.