Dollar-cost averaging is the practice of spreading out your investment into several smaller investments over several days, weeks, or months. Ethereum had an initial bull run in 2018, where the price reached $1,385 per ETH. A bear market set in later in 2018, and the price started dropping, bottoming out at less than $90 per ETH in 2019. The second large bull market started at the end of 2020 and reached an all-time high of $4,811 in 2021 before bottoming out at under $1,000 in June 2022. Gemini is a U.S.-based exchange that supports ETH buying, selling, and storage. Coinbase is the easiest and most trusted place to buy, sell, and manage your digital currency.

The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments. If you’re looking to take a narrower approach to investing in crypto and think that Ethereum will continue to be a top provider of network services, then it’s probably the better buy. I view the vast majority of crypto projects to be of very low quality, so the prospect of investing in a business whose core services revolve around crypto trading and wallet services does not seem appealing. By comparison, Ethereum has already proved itself to be a much higher-quality project. Before buying a volatile investment like Ether, you’ll want to make sure you’ve done your research and your finances are in good shape.

Because of its unique abilities, Ethereum has attracted all types of attention – from finance, to real estate, to investors, software developers, hardware manufacturers, and more. Ethereum is basically software that is decentralized and allows developers and programmers to run the code of any application.

How to Buy Ethereum with a Debit Card

While Coinbase might appear to have lower risk based on the fact that its core business is providing trading and holding services for the broader crypto ecosystem, I actually see this as a source of greater risk. Ethereum is extremely popular, with over 116 billion coins currently in investors’ hands. But just because it’s one of the more well-known cryptocurrencies doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

If you value trading stocks and crypto on the same service, or if you want to start with a small, more curated selection of digital assets, then Robinhood could be a better fit, given the free trades. This service is completely free of fees, and users can set how much of their paycheck they want distributed to Coinbase, either as a dollar amount or as a percentage. Coinbase users can also avoid trading fees by paying for a monthly membership to the Coinbase One service, which costs $29.99. One advantage Robinhood has over Coinbase is the cost to purchase cryptocurrencies.

There’s a pressing need for crypto-traders to calculate their gains from Bitcoin across Coinbase, GDAX, Gemini…

At this point, you’ll be able to see the balance available in your Coinbase wallet for the currency you’ve chosen. Again, transfers between the two platforms are free and instant, and there’s no limit on deposits for digital assets. Coinbase Pro is no longer available to new users — experienced crypto investors looking to shift to a more advanced form of trading on Coinbase will be redirected to Advanced Trade. However, Coinbase promises on its website that Advanced Trade offers the same volume-based fees as Coinbase Pro. With Robinhood, you’ll never really come across anything that resembles an advanced crypto trading platform. Would investors be better off putting their money behind the leading Layer-1 blockchain services provider’s ether token or buying Coinbase stock based on today’s pricing levels?

Then, choose the amount of ETH you want to send to your MetaMask wallet, make sure you select pay with Ethereum. It is a multi-coin wallet, Ethereum wallet, and Ethereum browser (DApp browser) that lets you explore the decentralized web. Simply put, the Coinbase wallet is integrating the power of cryptocurrency with decentralized applications.

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That Ether has become more valuable as a result of people becoming interested in the technology. It uses the same underlying technology principles, but uses them to facilitate monetary transactions. Ripple is similar to Ethereum in that it’s token XRP is also able to conduct real transactions. After you have purchased your ETH, you can view your balance under the Assets tab. After writing down your secret phrase you will be asked to enter it again to ensure you wrote it down correctly.

Ethereum has become a popular cryptocurrency alternative to Bitcoin over the last year. However, unlike Bitcoin and rival currency Litecoin, Ethereum has been adopted by many companies and startups as a way to transact (and more). There are thousands of financial products and services out there, and we believe in helping you understand which is best for you, how it works, and will it actually help you achieve your financial goals. We’re proud of our content and guidance, and the information we provide is objective, independent, and free. Before sending your ETH, you need to sign into your MetaMask wallet to copy your wallet address. Your wallet address can be found at the top of your wallet profile, under Account.

A “hot” crypto wallet is a software wallet that is connected to the internet. Hot wallets allow you to easily store, transfer, and receive cryptocurrencies and authorize transactions. Ethereum uses its smart contract technology to power an entirely new way of trading financial assets known as “decentralized finance” (DeFi). Through DeFi, individuals can trade, lend, and borrow crypto without relying on centralized intermediaries but instead by utilizing automated programs that link buyers and sellers and facilitate transactions. You can purchase Ethereum on almost any crypto exchange, but not all exchanges are created equal. Below we take a look at the best places to purchase Ethereum, weighing fees, trading minimums, and more.

While you learn to use tools for trading, you also need to be responsible and pay taxes on cryptocurrency trading. Here’s an article which tries to reduce confusion and provide clarifications on taxes on gains from crypto trading. However, after you get your funds on Coinbase, defi vs cefi the % of fees that it levies of each of your purchase and sale would be catch your eye if you are trading instead of just holding. If you are buying and selling frequently on coinbase, this fee could actually be of a concern as it starts eating off your profits or even losses.

• With over 89 million registered users, you can trust that you’re not alone when you choose Coinbase as your preferred crypto exchange.
• Both trading platforms offer two-factor authentication (2FA) via SMS, while Coinbase adds an additional layer of 2FA security via the Google Authenticator app.
• Ripple is similar to Ethereum in that it’s token XRP is also able to conduct real transactions.

The College Investor does not include all companies or offers available in the marketplace. And our partners can never pay us to guarantee favorable reviews (or even pay for a review of their product to begin with). Since Coinbase runs the validator nodes, all you need to do is deposit any amount of Ether tokens to stake and the exchange will do the rest.

Many other blockchains followed suit — Litecoin, Ethereum and Dash are all PoW blockchains. This validation model relies on a network of cryptocurrency miners that use powerful computers to secure the blockchain. However, PoW uses immense amounts of electricity, and these blockchains can’t handle nearly as many transactions as proof-of-stake chains can.

Coinbase Pro leverages Coinbase’s proven infrastructure to securely store funds and private information. This also simplifies the Coinbase Pro sign up process because you won’t need to provide us with information you’ve already given to Coinbase. Below we look at the two largest DeFi platforms that you can use to buy Ethereum. The developer, Coinbase, Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. Your feedback is valuable so we’ll pass this to our team for future improvements. The College Investor is an independent, advertising-supported financial media publisher, focusing on news, product reviews, and comparisons.

You can purchase ETH through the Binance website or by using the Binance app. You can fund your Binance account with a credit card, debit card, or bank deposit and store your purchased ETH on the Binance exchange or in an external wallet. If the value of Ethereum stays constant or rises, staking Ethereum is a great way to increase your return on investment. Instead of simply holding the asset, you’re able to earn interest that’s paid in Ethereum to accumulate more cryptocurrency. Since Ethereum is a volatile asset, a big risk involved with staking Ethereum tokens on Eth 2.0 is that your investment is no longer liquid.

If you have any open orders, Coinbase Pro will prompt you to cancel them. If you choose not to cancel the orders, the rest of your funds will be transferred, but those involved in the orders will remain in Coinbase Pro, along with any pending deposits. Once the transactions are complete, you can transfer the remaining funds.

When you sign into Coinbase, you will be asked to enter your phone number. Upon doing so, you will need to enter the seven-digit code Coinbase texted to you, into your Coinbase account. Select Verify Email Address in the email you received from Coinbase. The real fix is that Coinbase fix their API and return an error if the currency you select isn’t authorized (instead of ignoring that field and using the authorized currency without telling anyone). After following these steps, your Coinbase Wallet will be ready to transfer crypto. Part of it is understanding the link between Coinbase and Coinbase Pro and Advanced Trade.

But if you start using Coinbase without digging any deeper, you’re going to end up paying fees that can add up over time. While Bitcoin is the top cryptocurrency based on the value of its coins in circulation, Ethereum is no slouch. With a total value of over $230 billion, it’s the second biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Here’s how to get started buying Ether, the official name of the token that runs the Ethereum platform. Coinbase’s maker-taker fee is lower for higher-volume transactions, but the exchange charges deposit and withdrawal fees as well as high fees for crypto purchases with bank and debit cards.