In the two previous parts, we went through Ethereum and its functionalities. If you have read those two parts, now you know what Ethereum blockchain is, what it aims to do, and what innovations it has used to achieve these aims. In this third part, we want to elaborate a bit more on Ethereum’s native token, Ether, its price history, its wallets, and the ways to buy it. Stay with us.
Ether price and price history
At the time of writing (March 2022), one Ether is traded at around $2,500. Ethereum launched its native token in August 2014 and presold 50 million units of it through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). At that time, each Ether was sold at $0.31 and this means that Ether’s price has appreciated at around 8,000% through these years. According to the experts from crypto desk a crypto exchange in Dubai, It is worth mentioning that in November 2021, Ether recorded a price peak of $4,800. However, its price began to fall in December 2021, and it has not experienced a significant rise since then.
Ether’s functionality in the Ethereum blockchain
Ether is an independent coin or cryptocurrency that like Bitcoin and other coins, can be used as a store of value. As we mentioned in the previous part, Ether’s price has appreciated significantly throughout these years and it still has the potential to rise in the future. Therefore, it is an appropriate store of value and also an appropriate means for trading.
By the way, Ether has another important function in the Ethereum blockchain. It is used as a means for paying the network’s fees, or namely “the gas fees”.
Gas is the term used to refer to Ethereum’s fees. Conducting any operation in the Ethereum blockchain, from doing a transaction to running a smart contract and interacting with that contract, requires a specific amount of fee. The amount of fee can vary from day to day, depending on many factors including the traffic of the network at the time of doing the operation. When the network is crowded and its traffic is high, the fee increases and vice versa.
How to buy Ether?
Ether is a cryptocurrency and it should be bought from special exchanges called cryptocurrency exchanges. If you search for cryptocurrency exchanges in your country, you will find a number of local exchanges who tend to buy Bitcoin and Ether. which you can use for buying and selling these assets. The benefit of using a local exchange is that you can use your national currency to buy cryptos and you don’t need an international card. The only thing you have to do is to register in a cryptocurrency exchange, pass the KYC (Know Your Customer) process, transfer the required amount to the exchange’s account, and then trade this amount for the desired cryptocurrency.
By the way, if you have an international card, you can also use international cryptocurrency exchanges. The benefit of these exchanges is that they may support a wider range of coins and tokens and they also have much more liquidity. Therefore, you can buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies faster.
After you bought your desired coin or token, you need a place to store it. Cryptocurrency exchanges provide each user with a unique account in which they can store their cryptos. In other words, after you buy your desired crypto, it automatically goes to your account in the exchange and you don’t have to do anything more.
However, some experts believe that storing cryptocurrencies in the exchanges’ accounts is not safe enough. These exchanges are always online and they may be subject to several attacks. Therefore, some users prefer to transfer their cryptocurrencies to their personal wallets. By personal wallets, we mean hardware devices or applications which are specifically designed for storing cryptocurrencies.
In the following part, we will cover some of the most famous crypto wallets that support Ether and other ERC-20 tokens.
Cryptocurrency wallets that support Ether
Ether is one of the most well-known and most used cryptos in the world, so there are a number of valid wallets that support this coin. As we mentioned in the last part, all wallets supporting Ether also support ERC-20 tokens that have been run on the Ethereum blockchain. The table below covers some of the most famous Ether-supporting wallets.
| Wallet | Type |
|---|---|
| Trust wallet | Mobile Application |
| SafePal | Hardware and Mobile Application |
| MyEtherWallet | Web-based |
| MetaMask | Browser Extension |
| Atomic | Mobile and Desktop Application |
| Ledger | Hardware |
| Trezor | Hardware |
Conclusion
In this 3-part series, we went through all the important information and details that an average crypto user and lover must know about the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency. Ethereum is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies and it takes its popularity from its unique features and the innovations it has gifted to the world. The birth of Ethereum paved the way for so many similar networks and led to the development of NFTs, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), blockchain games, and a lot of other revolutionary concepts, on which we will elaborate more in separate articles.
