Getting Ethereum in 2021 is easy. Ethereum (ETH) is listed on all reputed exchanges as the cryptocurrency with the second-highest market capitalization after Bitcoin Core (BTC). You can convert your fiat (national legal tender, like USD, Euro, Yen, etc.) into Ethereum using any of these exchanges.

The other way to earn Ethereum is by mining it. At least, until Ethereum completely transitions to Proof of Stake by the end of Phase 2 of the proposed Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. At that point, you won’t be able to mine but you could still earn ETH by “staking” it.

The first phase of the proposed Eth2 upgrade is already live. This means that staking ETH is already possible. Staking ETH will passively reward you. You can either stake ETH solo (in which case, you need at least 32 ETH) or as part of a staking pool (ranging from 0.01 ETH to 16 ETH worth of minimum stake).

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is an ecosystem. It has multiple technologies. The most well-known aspect of the Ethereum ecosystem is Ether (ticker: ETH), the cryptocurrency. ETH is the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.

Apart from the ETH cryptocurrency, the Ethereum network has much more to offer: decentralized apps (dApps), decentralized finance applications (DeFi), programmable smart contracts, NFT tokens, and more. 

The most well-known application of Ethereum

The most well-known application of Ethereum is the usage of its native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH) for various purposes.

ETH is used for investment, trading, payments, and transacting privately across borders.

ETH is a peer-to-peer decentralized transaction system. It’s not influenced by typical markets. It’s maintained by the community.

Programmers also use the Ethereum technology to develop everything from games to finance applications on the platform that uses the ETH currency.

What about Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum 2.0, also known as Eth2, is a 3-phase upgrade on the current network. Key points:

• Eth2 will be more efficient and scalable.
• Eth2 promises higher network security.
• In Eth2, developers will build apps on one of the 64 initial “shards” instead of the main blockchain.
• When the transition to Eth2 is complete, Ethereum will completely become a Proof of Stake ecosystem. This will eliminate mining (and electricity costs related to the same). Instead, users will be able to “stake” their ETH to validate blocks and earn rewards.
• Currently, Ethereum can process 30 transactions per second. In Eth2, it will be handling 10,000 per second based purely on technological improvements.

Mine or Buy?

You can still mine ETH. The final dates of Phase 1 and Phase 2 are not yet fixed. There’s an option to stake it on few exchanges such as Redot.

If you want to mine, you need to invest in a high-end gaming GPU such as the Nvidia RTX 3080 or the AMD RX 5900 XT. You can also mine on older GPUs such as RTX 2080 Ti. Though the weaker the GPU, the lesser will be your profitability. Also, GPU availability is very unreliable right now.

You can check the profitability of a GPU for mining ETH on WhatToMine.com.

You can also purchase expensive ETH-mining ASIC machines. These are much more efficient for mining ETH.

On the other hand, it’s better to simply buy ETH. You can buy for as much as you want, though keep the transaction fees in mind.

Slowly, you can increase your ETH holding to a decent amount if you invest regularly. It’s a better way to have ETH. Mining will also be defunct when Eth2 is complete.’

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