Ethereum Investments Strategy? – How To Invest In Ethereum

Table of Contents

Introduction

Many platforms allow users to trade in and make Ethereum as a part of their investments. It was 2013 when this new technology got started. But, do you know who started Ethereum? Well, you’re on the right path. This article will help you understand what does Ethereum means and how to forecast whether Ethereum will turn out to be a good investment or not.

In 2017, Ethereum showed the world that they are a major player in cryptocurrency. As a result, many investors are looking to invest in Ethereum. As the potential of blockchain technology has begun to get realized, more and more people are turning to Ethereum as a platform for creating decentralized blockchain applications. This has led to increased interest in Ethereum as an investment.

What Is Ethereum?

An Image showing the Ethereum investments
Source: Photo by Jievani

Ethereum is a decentralized network that works on blockchain technology. Blockchain technology records the transactions in a public ledger and then they get stored in blocks. These blocks when they get linked to each other, they are called Blockchain. It has its own Cryptocurrency called Ether. After Bitcoin, Ether is the most popular cryptocurrency available. Ethereum is open-sourced to all. It means anyone can use this technology without any restrictions. Thus, it allows the developers to build decentralized apps on their networks. There is a platform called CryptoKitties. It uses Ethereum to create digital assets. These Cryptokitty are basically NFTs. For example, they can use ethereum and create cats with unique features. It allows the user to buy, sell and breed the cats.

Ether or ETH is the cryptocurrency of Ethereum. It has similar features to that of Bitcoin or any other coin. So you might be wondering, how do they create Ether? Well, the process is somewhat similar to that of Bitcoin. Thus, you need to mine Ether. And for mining, you need to solve difficult mathematical problems on computer systems. Hundreds of miners start competing with each other to solve that problem. And when a miner solves it, they earn Ether in return. Thus, people get tempted to add Ethereum as a part of their investments.

History Of Ethereum

As everyone knows, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. But, do you know who created Ethereum? Well, there’s a history involved behind it. Factually, no one person made it. In total, there are 8 co-founders of Ethereum. But, again, this idea was in the mind of Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik Buterin is the one who described the concept of Ethereum on a white paper. A white paper is basically a document with information written on it. It has information regarding how a problem can get solved or just an idea that can get proposed. So, Vitalik Buterin was a 19yr old computer science addict and a writer at the Bitcoin Magazine. he used to research cryptos, and he came across different flaws of bitcoin. One fine day, he fatefully met 8 people and discussed the plan. And that’s how Ethereum got founded.

But, as of now, not all Ethereum co-founders are together. Currently, only Vatalik Buterlin is working actively on this project. Charles Hoskinson and Gavin Wood have started different blockchains. Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, and Jeffrey Wilcke have left to find other jobs. Ether doesn’t have any stop. The first listed price of Ethereum was $2.77. Likewise, each year, there are 18 million ether mined. Vitalik Buterlin is now focusing on the Ethereum 2.0 development. If this happens, people will be more interested in Ethereum investments.

Bitcoin Vs Ethereum Investments

Now that you know what Ethereum is, there might be some questions rising in your mind. You might be thinking, what is the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum? Both seem to be a part of Cryptocurrency, but there’s a lot more to explore. The difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum are given below.

Bitcoin 

Ethereum

Bitcoin is a Cryptocurrency

Ethereum is a blockchain technology

There are 21 million Bitcoins available in the market

The Ethers are unlimited. Every year 18 million Ethers are mined.

Bitcoin network absorbs the transaction fees

Here, participants need to pay the gas fees 

It works on the Proof of Work protocol

Ethereum works on the Proof of Stake mechanism

Bitcoin doesn’t have any cryptocurrency because bitcoin itself is crypto.

Ethereum has its own cryptocurrency called Ether

How To Mine Ethereum Coins?

The mining of ether involves a lot of hard work. You can trade in ethereum by either buying or selling your coins on exchanges. People who mine or create coins are basically called miners. Just like gold miners dig the ground and find gold. Even ether miners try to dig the computer systems and create ethers. So, the process starts with keeping an eye on the transactions happening online. Their main aim is to become the first one to validate the transactions and store them on their block. Validating is not an easy job. It involves huge computing power that requires you to solve mathematical problems. It’s like miners have a series of blocks with them. So, one block gets filled with transactions, they earn newly minted Ether on it. It uses a Proof of Work mechanism. Along with that, they also get a gas fee, which is their reward.

You might be wondering that creating blocks is an easy job, but that’s not the case. You have to compete against thousands of miners and then validate each transaction into their block. It’s like fighting with many people for having one item in a shop. But, before starting the mining process, you have to look at the costs involved. This will help you to forecast whether you want to mine Ethereum or not.

Types Of Ethereum Mining

Companies are getting aware of Ethereum investments and investing in them. Ether mining helps to forecast the demand for ethereum in the market. In May 2021, the market cap of Ethereum was almost $407 billion. Ethereum is racing fast in the race of cryptocurrencies. As of now, there are three methods that miners use for mining. Here is the list of types of ether mining discussed below.

Pool Mining

The word pool itself states the meaning of this mining. In pool mining, basically, you form a group of miners. And whosoever cracks the hash, they share the reward with everyone. For example, assume you want to buy a birthday present for your brother, and what you have decided to give is a Lego set. But, when you search the whole market, you don’t get it. Then you tell your friends, whosoever will try to find that Lego set, will get a reward from your side. As told, everyone gets to work and luckily they get that set. You give them a reward and they share among themselves. The same applies to Pool mining. The more the number of miners, the chance of reward also increases.

Pool mining is the fastest way and easiest way to create coins. Thus, pool mining depends on certain factors like Pool size, Minimum payout, and Pool fee. Pools with small payouts are usually considered to be a safer option than larger payouts. You get paid frequently in smaller payouts. It would be better if you choose small pools because you will get your ethers early. Pool fee is an important part of trading and minting coins in ethereum. Basically, you have to pay a pool fee that varies between 1%-3%.

Solo Mining

In solo mining, you are the only one mining the Ether coins. In other words, you will see that unlike Pool mining you don’t have to share rewards with anyone. You are the sole owner and miner. Note that here you will be competing with many other miners so you have to be the best at your work. Solo mining is only profitable when you have all the required resources with yourself like the 100+ graphics cards. The more powerful your GPU is, the faster you will be able to mine the coins. Although solo mining is powerful, there are some limitations also. For Solo mining, you need to have good storage with you. Also, you need to have good electrical power to operate the systems.

Cloud Mining

Cloud mining is another method used to do mining. In Cloud mining, you basically tell them to use their equipment and let them mine for you. You pay some fees to them so that they mine for you in return. Just like anything else, this technique also has some pros and cons. Firstly, you are in a win-to-win situation, where if anything goes wrong, it is the damage of the equipment owner. Secondly, you don’t need any space and no electricity cost gets incurred. You can just sit back and relax. Another person will do your work and you just need to pay for it. But, there are cons of cloud mining also. If in case the ethereum price drops down, you won’t be able to get your money back. On the other hand, you can not direct the other person to change the equipment or anything else.

How To Make Good Ethereum Investments?

An Image showing the process of investing in Ethereum
Source : Photo by David Mcbee

Investors can buy and store ethereum as a long-term investment. Similar to Bitcoin, in the belief that its value would rise in the long run. However, like with any cryptocurrency investment, the price of ether get expected to fluctuate significantly, particularly in the near term. Because of this volatility, investing professionals advise restricting cryptocurrency investments to less than 5% of your whole portfolio and investing just what you’re willing to lose.

Now that you know about the types of Ethereum mining, let’s look into how to buy and trade in Ethereum investments. Firstly to do Ethereum investments, you need to buy Ether coins. You can’t just go to your street local market and purchase Ethereum. There are different ways through which you can invest in Ethereum.

Choose Crypto Platform To Invest in Ethereum

The first step is that you need to choose a platform where you will be able to trade in ethereum. There are many popular platforms like Coinbase, Gemini, and eToro. Also, different payment apps like Paypal and Venmo allow you to buy Ether coins from their platforms.

Have Money In Your Wallet

Once you have signed up to your account in any of the crypto exchanges, the next step involves transferring money to your wallet. You can link your wallet to a debit or credit card. Then, you need to transfer money to your wallet or further purchases.

Place An Order For Ethereum

After you’ve filled your account, you’ll be able to exchange your US dollars for Ethereum. Simply enter the amount of USD you want to exchange for Ethereum. Depending on the price of Ethereum and how much you wish to buy, you will most likely be purchasing shares of a single Ethereum currency. Whatever amount you pay will get displayed as a proportion of the total ether currency.

Storing Ethereum Coins As A Part Of Your Investments

Now that you have brought the Ether coins, you can simply store them in your wallet. Or else, if you want, you can also sell them whenever you wish to. Basically, the stock prices of Ethereum witness severe highs and lows. You can easily forecast the trend movements for Ethereum coins. It is better to research and forecast properly before going for Ethereum.

Top 3 Software Used For Ethereum Mining

Mining the coins without any right equipment can be a little tough job. You need to have all the tools before actually starting the mining process. Thus, it enables smooth trade in Ethereum coins. Well, now that you know how to invest in ethereum, let’s look at the various software used for Ether mining.

ETHminer

If you’re a Microsoft Windows user, ETHminer is one of your top choices for Ethereum mining software. ETHminer (Windows), is one of the most popular and best Ethereum miners. It has “Earnings per Minute” and “Earnings per Day” choices. Also, they have programs tied up that offer 10-100% bonuses. From the coins you have minted, users can easily trade in Ethereum coins.

Claymore

Claymore software allows you to mine Ethereum coins. Currently, the miner supports a “dual mining” option – according to the creators, now you can mine both Ethereum and another, a specific type of crypto (Decred, Lbry, Pascal, or Siacoin) simultaneously. A claymore is a software available for Windows and Linux. It supports both AMD and Nvidia cards (including in mixed mining rigs). Eventually, it allows you to forecast ethereum coins in the market.

Minergate

Minergate is one of the top mining applications for Mac users. They let you mine from the Ethereum blockchain while also using the ASIC pool. Minergate provides access to their calculator as well as a cloud mining service. You may also keep track of their services through a built-in area on the site.

Pros and Cons of Ethereum Investments

As per the market, the current price of 1 Ethereum is $2,602.89. Based on trends and figures, one can forecast for Ethereum to move forward. Just like every coin has two sides, even Ethereum investments have some pros and cons. Let’s check it out.

Pros Of Ethereum Investments

The main advantage of investing in Ethereum is that it has the first-mover advantage. After Bitcoin, Ethereum is the most fast-moving technology in the world. Many people are investing in Ethereum and gaining huge benefits from it. One of them is Cryptokitties launched in 2017. The success of Cryptokitties boosted Ethereum. Since Vitalik Buterlin announced that he is working on Ethereum 2.0, this has boosted the stock price of Ether. People are more reliable on Bitcoin and Ethereum when it comes to cryptocurrency. Apart from that, Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and Amazon are also reportedly accumulating Ethereum in their investments. Just like Bitcoin, even Ethereum has no risk of Inflation. Thus, it makes it easy to trade in Ethereum.

Cons Of Ethereum Investments

There are different cons of having Ethererum as your investment. Firstly, Ethereum is currently processing transactions at a low rate of 15 transactions per second. If this continues, It might turn out to be a bug for the miners. Ether Gas fees are also a major problem of Ethereum. The gas fees were basically higher in the first quarter of 2020, which made the miners angry. Also, there are many cases of hacking involved in it. Many hackers try to connect your wallets and steal Ethereum. Thus, it is necessary to forecast the risks involved for Ethereum.

Forecast For Ethereum

An Image showing the trade of Ethereum
Source : Photo by Bram van Oosterhout

The Ethereum prices are continuously seeing a rise and drop in recent years. When Ethereum was first traded, the price was $2.77. Slowly, the stock price started rising. In December 2020, Ethereum 2.0 first phase was released. That’s when the price of Ethereum was boosted. An all-time high of $4,805.64 was noticed on November 2021. As per the forecast, in the past few months, the price of Ethereum has been falling. In December 2021, the price was $4691. Today the price of Ethereum has dropped to $3006.64. In the following months, the forecast for ethereum says that the price will continue to drop. But, the price will sustain to a maximum of $3,500- $3,600. Maybe when the third phase of Ethereum will launch in 2023, the price might increase. Thus, if you want to trade in ethereum you can buy it now and then keep it as a long-term investment.

Is It Worth Investing in Ethereum?

Well, it depends on various factors whether you want to invest in Ethereum or not. It is necessary to forecast the various risks involved before you opt for Ethereum. As per investors, you should at least have some percentage of Ethereum investments. It is better advised not to trade all your money in ethereum. Keep your portfolio diversified. Another biggest advantage is that there is an unlimited supply of Ethereum. Currently, there are 18 million Ether. It means there is no limited supply of Ether. You can buy and store Ethereum as much as you wanted. Again, it depends upon you whether you want to invest in Ethereum or not. But before investing, do research and forecast the trends properly.

Conclusion

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform. It features smart contracts and also provides a decentralized Turing-complete virtual machine. This article summarizes the types of Ethereum mining. You can also trade in Ethereum coins using various platforms. By watching the various trends, you can also forecast and predict for Ethereum coins. Lastly, it depends on you whether you want to have Ethereum investments or not.