How to Buy Ether (Ethereum)

how to buy ether

Although Ethereum has one of the largest cryptocurrency market caps, it’s still fairly new. Not all exchanges support direct purchases of ether. In most cases buying bitcoins and trading for ether is the easiest way to get ether.

With that said, there are still a few exchanges where you can buy ether without bitcoin:

logo Kraken Buy
Kraken is a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange based in Europe. Kraken offers six ether trading pairs: ETH/XBT, ETH/USD, ETH/EUR, ETH/CAD, ETH/JPY, and ETH/GBP. Because Kraken offers a wide range of payment methods–SEPA transfer, USD bank wire, GBP SEPA, Interac Online–it is the easiest way for most people to buy ether directly.
logo Coinbase Buy
Coinbase is one of the world's largest Bitcoin and Ether exchanges. Users in the United States, Canada, most of Europe, and Singapore can buy bitcoins with a connected bank account or SEPA transfer. European users can purchase bitcoins with 3D secure credit or debit cards.
logo Coinimal Buy
Buy ether in Europe with credit card, debit card NETELLER, Skrill, GIROPAY, SEPA, or OBT.
logo ICONOMI Buy
Buy ether in Europe with a SEPA transfer.
logo Bittylicious Buy
Buy ether with GBP or Euros.
logo Bitrush Buy
Bitrush is an exchange for Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Trading Bitcoins for Ether

If using Kraken isn’t an option, the second easiest way to get ether is to exchange bitcoins for ether. Many Bitcoin exchanges offer this trading pair:

logo Kraken Buy
ETH/XBT is one of Kraken’s six ETH trading pairs.
logo Poloniex Buy
Poloniex is an altcoin exchange and has the highest ETH/BTC volume.
logo ShapeShift.io Buy
Convert bitcoins to ether in less than a minute.

Completing your Purchase

Once your purchase has been made, send your ether to a wallet you control:

  • Ethereum Wallet - Desktop Ethereum wallet for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

  • MyEtherWallet - Open source Javascript client-side Ether wallet.

  • EthAddress - open source Javascript client-side paper wallet generator.

  • EthereumWallet - EthereumWallet uses client side Javascript to quickly create Ethereum addresses in web browsers. Still in beta.

Buy Ether with PayPal

Although not recommended, it’s possible to buy ether with PayPal. First you must buy SLL on VirWox, then trade SLL for bitcoin. Once you have BTC you can use any of the methods above to trade bitcoin for ether.

Buy Ether with Credit Card or Debit Card

There is still no easy way to buy Ether directly with a credit card. The best way is to use an exchange like Circle (US) or CoinCorner (UK & Europe) to buy bitcoins which you can trade for ether.

Written by Melvin Draupnir on February 11, 2016.

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