But who is Vitalik Buterin?

Born in 1994 in Kolomna, Russia, his parents emigrated to Canada when he was 6 to seek better employment opportunities. Standing out at school as an odd mathematical genius before being placed in a private high school for four years where he developed a passion for knowledge.

Coming across Bitcoin in 2010, he was intrigued but sceptical. However, the more he learnt, the more his interest deepened, though he had neither the money and/or equipment to buy/mine bitcoin. However, eventually, he landed a job writing about Bitcoin for a blog that paid 5 bitcoin an article. This led him to Romanian entrepreneur Mihai Alisie with whom he co-founded Bitcoin Magazine. He travelled the world looking at, and writing about, new cryptocurrency projects.

The Birth of Ethereum

Vitalik found most of the crypto projects out there limited in scope and highly specialised. He realised that it might be possible to create a blockchain that could run any crypto project by offering a full programming language that could do anything (“Turing-complete”).

None of the projects he spoke to were interested, so he decided to do it himself, creating a white paper in late 2013 and passing it around to his friends who shared it further and evolved the idea beyond digital currency into a full-blown virtual global computer.

The project was announced to the world in January 2014, with a core team of Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alise, Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson, Joe Lubin and Gavin Wood, and an ICO (“initial coin offering”) was run selling off the first Ether coins in exchange for Bitcoin.

Raising the equivalent of $18m, they got to work creating the Ethereum Foundation, and Ethereum itself.

The Struggles of Ethereum

All major projects need one major drama: with Bitcoin, most of its struggles were centred around the Mt. Gox exchange. Ethereum’s struggle came from a hacker. Ethereum’s blockchain allows users to set up DAOs: “Decentralised Autonomous Organisations”, one such DAO that had $150m in funds and over 11,000 users had vulnerabilities in its codebase that a hacker used to steal the funds (he even threatened to sue anyone who tried to get it back).

A huge argument raged around whether to implement, as Vitalik wanted, a piece of code to blacklist the attacker and make sure he couldn’t transfer his tokens. Some objected strongly because this wasn’t the vision of crypto they’d signed up for, so Ethereum split into two: Ethereum Classic (ETC) which contained the original blockchain, and Ethereum (ETH) which had the modifications.

In the end, ETH became more popular with both community and corporate backing. Today’s ETH price: over $1000. Today’s Ethereum Classic price? $15.98.

Ethereum 2.0

Nowadays the drama in Ethereum is all about the upgrades to ETH 2.0 (a phrase that Ethereum itself now no longer uses). Ethereum has become too successful for its own good, because it can no longer properly keep up with the number of transactions generated by the dApps (decentralised apps) running on it, resulting in huge transaction fees.

The main upgrades to fix this are “sharding” (spreading processing load), and moving Ethereum from “proof-of-work” to generate new coins and validate transactions (slow, energy-heavy), to “proof-of-stake”, which replaces “miners” doing calculation work with validators who put up their ETH to get a chance to earn more by keeping the blockchain running.

It’s not a guarantee that these upgrades will progress smoothly, and they’re already some years late. However, the Ethereum foundation is very clear that they are taking a “safety-first” approach.

If the upgrade works, Ethereum has a bright future, despite competitors like Solana trying to eat its lunch!

The post Who invented Ethereum appeared first on AQRU.

Ethereum, apart from being a cryptocurrency and a blockchain, is a giant worldwide virtual computer for digital asset financial transactions.

It was launched in 2015, and quickly became the second-biggest market force behind the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin.

The innovation for Ethereum over bitcoin was “smart contracts” – pieces of code that can do everything from distributing dividends to managing entire “tokens” (coins that don’t have their own blockchain).

It’s been wildly successful so far.

The History of Ethereum 2.0

So, everything’s great, right? Well, not really. The price of success is often greater than the price of failure: and that’s true for Ethereum – it’s a victim of its own success. In the case of Ethereum, that problem is most acutely visible in the cost of transactions on the blockchain: the gas fee, which at times is stupidly high. For a technology that’s supposed to be cheaper than traditional finance, high gas fees break that promise.

The first problem is capacity. A blockchain is called that because it consists of “blocks”, chained together (blocks can never be edited once they’ve been added).

Each block can only store a certain number of transactions in the blockchain, and there’s a limited number of blocks that can be added per minute. That means transactions queue up, waiting to be added to the blockchain.

Why is there a limited number of blocks possible per minute?

That’s because Ethereum is “proof-of-work” like bitcoin. Computers worldwide compete to be the first to solve a mathematical puzzle and win the right to put a block on the blockchain. That means blocks can only be added when a puzzle has been solved – and that takes time.

Aside from the capacity bottleneck, it’s not a good environmental footprint because there are lots of computers all doing unnecessary work. But now that there are enough coins out there from the old system, Ethereum is moving to a new system that relies on those coins: “proof-of-stake”.

Where proof of work demands “miners”, proof-of-stake demands “validators”. Validators sign up to process transactions and get paid in newly minted coins. To do this, they have to prove they’re serious, by “staking” Ethereum into the blockchain: 32 ETH to be exact.

All validators have a chance of being chosen to validate a block for a reward in ETH. If you stake more coins, you have a bigger chance of being chosen and rewarded.

How do I get new ETH?

Mining Ethereum became out-of-reach to the average consumer pretty quickly, relying on investments in expensive equipment (it’s also the reason decent graphics cards became absurdly expensive – the chips on them were ideal for Ethereum calculations for proof-of-work). The forthcoming move to ETH 2.0 is going to eventually result in a glut of great graphics cards at cheap prices. Not something that’s going to end the world recession on its own, but still…

In many ways, the new proof-of-stake swaps one form of inaccessibility for another: while you don’t have to buy equipment, you do have to find 32 ETH – which at the time of writing is about $54,000. And you can’t get that back until they program in a way for you to do so!

While small investors could always hire computing power from cryptocurrency mining companies, it was a wild-west industry. There’s no way you can tell how much of the power you’ve brought is being used to reward you, and mining companies opened and shut like there was no tomorrow.

With Ethereum staking, more reputable companies are forming “staking pools”, in which the company puts up as many 32 ETHs as it can handle, and sells a stake in that to smaller investors who then earn a return. This approach ends up looking a lot like a crypto yield-bearing account, the only difference being the use your investment is put to.

One difference with crypto yield-bearing accounts is that it lets you “stake” in cryptocurrencies that aren’t “proof-of-stake” – like bitcoin. Handy!

How was the upgrade planned?

None of this was a particular surprise to the Ethereum community, they’ve been planning this upgrade for years. The move to proof-of-stake is one in a long line of improvements made over the years, with upgrades being incremental.

In fact, large parts of ETH 1.0 are staying and the term ETH 2.0 is now out-of-date. According to ethereum.org:

“To limit confusion, the community has updated these terms:

• ‘Eth1’ is now the ‘execution layer’, which handles transactions and execution.
• ‘Eth2’ is now the ‘consensus layer’, which handles proof-of-stake consensus.”

So basically, they’re keeping the good bits of the current version, and upgrading the problematic bits.

Ethereum proof-of-stake is already running in test mode and paying out to stakeholders, though no one has any idea what the overall return on staked coins will be when that chain is merged with the existing one, which is very close now.

But what does this all mean for potential or current Eth-vestors?

Should you change your investment strategy?

Basically, no (not unless regulation changes that, and that’s some way in the future).

What you should do is beware of ETH2 scams. These warnings come from the Ethereum website itself:

“Scam Prevention

Unfortunately, malicious actors have attempted to use the Eth2 misnomer to scam users by telling them to swap their ETH for ‘ETH2’ tokens or that they must somehow migrate their ETH before the Eth2 upgrade. We hope this updated terminology will bring clarity to eliminate this scam vector and help make the ecosystem safer.

Staking Clarity

Some staking operators have also represented ETH staked on the Beacon Chain with the ‘ETH2’ ticker. This creates potential confusion, given that users of these services are not actually receiving an ‘ETH2’ token. No ‘ETH2’ token exists; it simply represents their share in that specific providers’ stake.”

Do you need to swap your tokens?

No. There is no ETH2 token, and you will never need to swap ETH for ETH2. If a company is talking about ETH2, they might be talking about your share of their stake… but that’s not a token.

The whole Ethereum upgrade has been designed not to disrupt currently running apps and make sure users’ ETH isn’t disrupted.

You can buy ETH and earn interest at AQRU

ETH is cheaper than it’s been for a while, and you can earn interest on it without dealing with staking pools by buying it and investing it at AQRU.

You can onboard at our website or download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

After verification, you can fund your account with GBP or EUR (minimum deposit of 100 euros equivalent applies), and buy ETH from AQRU without commission and at a competitive exchange rate. Press the “invest” button, and you’re earning (you can also buy ETH by debit card using in-app provider “MoonPay”, but fees apply).

So, good luck with your ETH-ical investing. We’re all validating on you!

The post What is Ethereum 2.0? appeared first on AQRU.

That means other companies (or even people) can create their own tokens on the Ethereum “Blockchain”, which is a combination of an incorruptible ledger, and mini-wallet-type addresses that can host both tokens and code.

Interacting with the Ethereum Blockchain (like moving tokens around or using Smart Contracts) requires you to pay ETHER (ETH), the native currency of the Blockchain. Most people buy this from exchanges, from crypto finance apps or card issuers such as Revolut or Wirex, or through third-party providers in apps or websites, such as MoonPay, used by AQRU.

As of writing, a single ETH is worth around $3,000, but you don’t have to have a whole one: like almost everything in crypto, you can own or trade a fraction of a thing. Well, except NFTs (single, one-off tokens that represent a particular thing – you can’t split those).

But you don’t always have to buy ETH: you can earn it too: how would you like free Ethereum?

Faucets

There are not many times in life that you get something free without having to put something in first, but Crypto Faucets get close.

The basic ones simply give you a tiny amount of free Crypto just by pressing a button. Don’t get too carried away though, they’re tiny amounts.

Of course, Faucets have got to make money somewhere, and they make it by attracting users who will play games, look at ads, watch videos, fill in surveys or perform other tasks to earn tokens. Users effectively exchange their time for Crypto.

While there are Faucets that give out free ETH, transmission fees are so high on the Ethereum Blockchain at the moment that everything you earn gets wiped out in one hit by fees.

Everyone is waiting for the ETH 2.0 upgrade that stops this madness, but in the meantime, there are lots of Cryptocurrencies that can be sent and converted cheaply.

Mining

To “mine” ETH you download software that runs 24/7 trying to be the first to solve different mathematical puzzles to earn the chance to validate a new block of transactions for the Blockchain. If you’re the first, you get a reward in ETH.

We’re stretching the definition of “free” here since unless you pay someone else (like a mining company) to rent processing power to mine ETH, you need to buy expensive equipment to do it (this is why there’s a shortage of graphic cards). Plus you need to pay for the electricity to do it.

Another good reason for not buying into this is that Ethereum is undergoing an upgrade that will stop mining altogether…

Staking

… and replace it with “staking”, which is where ETH holders with processing power to spare (called “validators”) lock up some of their coins in the blockchain to get ETH. Since the ETH 2.0 blockchain exists, you can already do staking.

BUT, to be a standalone “validator”, you need to stake 32 ETH (about $96,000 at the time of writing). That needs to be a really long-term investment, because ETH 2.0 doesn’t have the code to “unstake” yet, and no one quite knows how long it will be until that bit’s written!

Exchanges and other companies run “staking pools”, which allow you to stake much smaller amounts of ETH (for a much smaller reward of course). And access to your rewards is much simpler.

The return on Ethereum staking tends to be about 4.2% APY (Annual Percentage Yield).

No one really knows how that will change when ETH 2.0 is rolled out properly and explodes in popularity.

Buy and Hold

I hate to break it to you, but this strategy doesn’t get you free ETH. If you buy 1 ETH, in 10 years’ time, you’ll still have 1 ETH. Of course, its value in dollars will be wildly different! But unless you do something extra on top of “hold”, you won’t see an increase in your ETH wealth over time (if you traded it regularly to and from another currency or Cryptocurrency at an exchange, you might end up with more ETH: you might also end up with more stress and less ETH).

Earning Interest on your Ethereum

Of course, to earn “interest” (let’s call it “yield”), you have to have a lump sum to start with. But then, that’s true of all finance.

So the simplest way to get free ETH accumulating over time without effort is to open an interest-bearing crypto account: for instance with AQRU.io. We offer 0% APY on your ETH: better than staking’s 4.2% and payable on amounts as small as 100 Euros.

How do you go about this?

Well, first you sign up for free at the AQRU.io website, or in the AQRU app (beware of app store imitators!). When you do this, you will instantly be given 10USDC to invest in a USD Stablecoin investment account so you can see the micro fractions of a cent/penny really begin to accumulate. It’s a lot of fun to see your wealth increase in real-time. If you gave this to Jeff Bezos, I bet he’d never put down his phone!

Second, you get verified. These days there’s no evading the ole’ passport/proof of address routine. Indeed, you should distrust companies that don’t ask!

Third, you can make a deposit. This can be:

1. Sending Crypto funds in from another address (AQRU doesn’t charge deposit fees, though the chances are you would be charged withdrawal and transmission fees by the exchange/Blockchain for sending them).
2. Wire transfer from GBP/EUR.
3. Buy Crypto with a debit card directly in the app through trusted third-party provider MoonPay.

Then, you can hit the “invest” button and start earning 0% APY on your Ethereum: you can withdraw fee-free into Fiat at any time, too!

Other perks of AQRU are that you earn that yield on the full amount of your deposit, and you don’t need to purchase any other tokens to get that rate.

Whatever solution you choose for your free-thereum, make sure it’s interest-ing!

The post How do you earn free Ethereum? appeared first on AQRU.

Whereas Bitcoin’s Blockchain was essentially a globally-shared ledger and an alternative currency, Ethereum’s goal was to be a global computer (based on Blockchain principles) that could run apps and function as a DAO – a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (one that runs itself, and there’s no one organisation that has control over it).

How does it run itself? Ethereum is a giant computer (a “Virtual Machine”) powered by computers worldwide running the Ethereum software. The programs running on it are “Smart Contracts” – bits of code hosted on the Blockchain that perform specific functions such as “take this and pay all these people”, or “check the status of this, then send it to x”. It’s all automated, and anyone can see the code of the Smart Contracts. It doesn’t care who executes them, as long as all the conditions are fulfilled. You need to pay ETH to execute any Smart Contract, and that ETH payment is called “Gas”. Some other Blockchains have a literal “GAS” token for the same purpose.

The development of Ethereum was financed by a pre-sale of $18 million worth of tokens (called Ether, abbreviated to ETH). It was launched in 2015. Despite not being launched as a store of value, it became the second most popular store of value after Bitcoin.

A Rocky Start – Ethereum and Security

Ethereum as a Blockchain is as secure as Bitcoin’s: any tampering with transactions is impossible because that tampering will always be outvoted by the many other “miners” processing transactions.

However, the Smart Contracts – the code written by people who want to use the Blockchain for something – are always a potential weak point. They’re visible to all, but that “all” includes hackers, as well as people who might be motivated to fix a bug.

In 2016, a hacker removed $50 million of ETH from a venture fund by hacking a Smart Contract, and Ethereum developers had a dramatic battle between themselves over what to do about it. One set wanted to leave things as they were, and one set wanted to modify the Blockchain so that the $50 million was restored.

In the end, they had a vote and the fixers won the day. However, the non-fixers decided that they would split the Blockchain to maintain their own version of Ethereum: Ethereum Classic (ETC). The fixed Ethereum was the “official” version and took off. The classic version… not so much. Though it didn’t fail either.

There have been many “Smart Contract” hacks since, but none of them resulted in a similar earthquake.

How is ETHER (ETH) Created?

Ethereum was originally designed to operate on the same Proof-of-Work principle as Bitcoin: computers around the world compete to solve a time-limited mathematical puzzle and earn the right to add a new block to the Blockchain in exchange for a reward in ETH. Other computers are then chosen to validate that transaction in exchange for a bit more ETH.

The puzzles come and go much quicker than with Bitcoin, for a supposedly faster network. However, this computationally intensive way of working has become a huge bottleneck, resulting in an overloaded network and sky-high gas fees: the Ethereum Blockchain now supports a vast array of tokens and activity, with much of DeFi (Decentralised Finance) resting on its back.

Also, while most of the electricity consumed solving the puzzles is from renewable sources, it’s still an environmental factor the world could do without.

Fixing ETH

To fix the problems with capacity and environmental footprint, Ethereum developers have been working since 2020 on ETH 2.0. There have been lots of improvements, but the main one is moving from Proof-of-Work (computation) to Proof-of-Stake.

Staking a Claim

ETH 2.0 replaces miners with “validators”: users who want to earn a share of the new ETH by validating transactions with their computer. To be a validator, they lock up some of their ETH so that it can’t be sold, moved or traded, and keep their computer running to validate transactions.

The Blockchain then continually chooses users to be that lucky validator and receive the reward. The more you stake, the better the chance you have. It’s like the old “Premium Bonds”, where you lock your money into bonds, and the computer chooses some bonds to win prizes. While you have the bonds, you’re entered into each draw, but you can still sell them to get your money back if you want (though ETH will have changed in value while locked away).

Staking ETH (once ETH 2.0 is fully functional) will be one way of earning money from Ethereum that has similar results to an interest-bearing account. But, there’s no fixed rate and your return can vary depending on luck. However, to be a full validator, you will need a lot of ETH and to leave your computer running to validate transactions.

This will mean more staking pools, where you pool your ETH with others and everyone shares the validator money. This does put you at the mercy of a private company because they would be a middleman in the staking process.

ETH 2.0 was due for full launch in June 2022 but has been delayed.

Much of Decentralised Finance is also waiting for that development: there are other Blockchains competing with Ethereum, but the “unhackability” of the core Blockchain and the number of other users means that Ethereum is perceived as a safe option for mission-critical transactions. Ethereum is home, for instance, to many Stablecoins that track real-world assets: such as USDC (which track the US Dollar and are used instead of it in Crypto transactions).

How do you Buy or Trade Ethereum?

You can buy Ethereum in more and more places: even Paypal offers it now! The most common places to buy are:

1. At AQRU

AQRU offers a simple and convenient way to buy and sell Ethereum through trusted payment provider MoonPay and is especially handy for investing your new Crypto stash into AQRU’s Crypto funding services.

Centralised exchanges can be the cheapest way, but you can also easily incur withdrawal fees sending the Crypto somewhere useful, and it’s often safer and more convenient to buy from.

Low-fee exchanges might also be the cheapest place to exchange your ETH into other Crypto or sell back your ETH to USD or other “real” (fiat) currencies, though this does mean sending your ETH back into the exchange to sell, which is more transmission fees.

In centralised exchanges, the selling/buying process is also more complicated than the other options, since you have to understand the various types of orders and how to execute them.

Even if you have no intention of trading, it’s a good idea to register with an exchange ahead of time just in case, and to get a better idea of the whole Crypto process: for instance, what an order book looks like, what the price histories of the Cryptos are, etc. It’s even more fun when you’re just looking!

2. At a Financial Service Provider such as Paypal or Wirex

More pricey than an exchange with little transparency about the rate you’re getting, but it’s easier than an exchange with little transparency about the rate you’re getting.

You can buy, sell and swap between Cryptos easily on these platforms, but to use them in Ethereum services, they still need to be sent to a wallet.

3. Using an in-app or in-wallet Provider

The popular Ethereum wallet “MetaMask” interrogates a range of payment providers to get the “best” quote for swaps between ETH and a wide range of other Crypto, and links to third-party payment services for purchasing ETH.

Some Web 3.0 websites such as OpenSea (NFT marketplace) and INX Securities (digital security tokens – like stocks and shares on the Blockchain), link to MetaMask and access your local wallet rather than demanding that you send your tokens elsewhere.

4. A Decentralised Exchange (DEX)

It’s possible to buy, swap and trade ETH on a Decentralised Exchange that also has access to your local wallet rather than transferring your tokens to an exchange-owned wallet somewhere else. Some exchanges are “order book”, and run like a regular centralised exchange, and some are “swap” exchanges, where the software directly finds people who are offering compatible swaps (like ETH for USDC).

A good list of decentralised exchanges can be found here.

Does Ethereum have Value?

The traditional answer to this is that something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But the value of ETH is also built on its usefulness and vast network. The more it’s used, the more ETH has to be purchased to activate the Smart Contracts: and the supply isn’t infinite. Therefore, supply and demand kick in and the price tends to rise.

Also, Ethereum is the technology underlying many other financial instruments, all of which have value – for instance, the tokens that are hosted on it.

Tokens, tokens, tokens

We haven’t touched yet on how quite early on in the life of Ethereum, a standard called ERC-20 was established to standardise the specifications of tokens launched on the Blockchain. The launch of ERC-20 was the signal for a boom in tokens on the Blockchain.

Now you even get ETH-ised versions of coins from other Blockchains, such as wBTC (“Wrapped BTC”) so that Bitcoin/Ethereum trading can happen within the Ethereum environment.

Ethereum even has competing token standards for Security Tokens – that is, tokens intended to represent a share of something – like digital stocks and shares. ERC-1404 for example ensures that transfers can only happen between whitelisted addresses, solving many regulatory problems. It also allows tokens to be revoked, which means it’s also impossible to lose them or steal them.

The Future of Ethereum

Will demand for Ethereum continue to rise?

The eager wait for ETH 2.0 implies that it will, even in the face of competing Blockchains that also offer dApps (Smart Contracts with a user interface). If the digital security token market takes off and uses ETH 2.0, then you will see exponential growth.

So, promising lower fees, a lower environmental footprint, faster transmission rates and more facilities, it’s a big upgrade that needs to succeed.

Exciting, uncertain times. But one thing is certain: you can get 0% on ETH investments at AQRU! Sign up for free today and start earning high-interest returns on your Ethereum.

The post What is Ethereum? appeared first on AQRU.

You can buy, sell and store both of these assets using wallets and exchanges that normally let you buy with anything from bank transfers, other digital assets, or even debit cards. At the time of writing (April 2022), one BTC is worth $43,000 and one ETH is worth $3,180. You can check the current prices at CoinMarketCap – that should give you an idea about how much the price changes.

Check out our blog articles for more about buying and storing Ethereum and other digital assets.

There are two very big questions to answer in this blog:

1. Is any Cryptocurrency a good investment compared to traditional finance investment options?
2. How does Ethereum compare as an investment vehicle compared to other digital assets such as Bitcoin?

And one sub-question only you can answer, but we’re sure you’re on it already since you’re smart:

1. “Is Ethereum a good investment vehicle for you?”

We can’t advise you, but we can point out some things.

Is Ethereum a good investment compared to regular financial instruments?

Investment opportunities in traditional finance to retail investors tend to be anaemic at best. Savings accounts are all but worthless, for instance. Investment funds that use the stock market tend to underperform, and most of the gain is had by the fund managers, not regular folk.

It’s certainly true that developing markets offer better returns and more risk. Cryptocurrency is the ultimate developing market: Ethereum has been around since 2015 and is still going in 2022 with an amazing rate of return for early investors who got in and out at the right time (not so good for people who bought into the hype and sold in depression).

The reason Ethereum is worth anything at all is that the Ethereum “Blockchain” (which is a digital ledger and a huge virtual computer) requires users to use ETH (the native “currency”) to interact with “Smart Contracts” (bits of code stored in the Blockchain that do stuff).

So, users have to buy ETH and use it to pay “gas fees” (the fees required by Smart Contracts to run). ETH is used at a higher rate than it’s generated, and supply and demand do the rest. The fact that ETH is bought and sold on the open market means that people also buy/sell/borrow and lend it, this activity adding to the value.

How does this compare with Bitcoin?

People buy and sell Bitcoin primarily to use as a virtual currency or, more likely, a store of value. Rather than seeing them as competing investment options, the sensible option from an investing point of view is to see ETH and BTC as options in a diversified approach. ETH may have more upside than BTC because there’s a distinct possibility that usage will explode over time compared to Bitcoin. Bitcoin also has less risk attached than Ethereum at the time of writing because ETH has more direct competitors and its future depends on the success of an upgrade.

Advantages of investing in Ethereum

At the time of writing, Ethereum is hugely successful and is the second biggest digital asset by market capitalisation. Some are predicting it will “flip” with Bitcoin to become the biggest.

This fundamental is persuasive in itself: the use cases and network effects of Ethereum increase every day.

In fact, Ethereum has become too successful for its own good. So many companies and people use it for so many things that transmission fees have become unreasonably expensive, and the speed of transaction processing has decreased. These things render it unsuitable (at the moment) for much further expansion.

But an upgrade is in progress: ETH 2.0. If ETH 2.0 delivers what’s promised, then it will combine massive new capabilities with trusted technology: a killer combination that could open the floodgates to traditional finance migrating to Ethereum.

For instance, stock markets could migrate companies to digital security tokens: there’s a whole host of practical money-saving reasons for doing that.

Ethereum has also survived the onslaught of regulators relatively unscathed, despite a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

Of course, like any investment, you’d pick your time to buy. Ethereum (like other digital assets) has good days and bad days, and you can keep an eye on sites such as CoinMarketCap to see which is which: this is useful even if you aren’t trading.

Risks of investing in Ethereum – Asset Value

In terms of asset value, Cryptocurrency is unregulated and volatile: and there are regular predictions from “experts” that it could crash to zero at any moment (all of which have been proved wrong for major Cryptos).

Also, bear markets with depressed pricing can be prolonged, and there’s no safety net – Crypto can (and has) dropped by 92% of its value (though incredibly picking it back up again a couple of years later).

In the long-term (with sensible entry and exit points), the major Cryptocurrency has generally gone up in price reflecting increased usage and (sometimes) increasing scarcity.

One other risk you can’t guard against is political/legislative risk. For much of its life, Crypto has been under attack from the traditional banking sector and the politicians they influence. In some countries, using it was banned (but no country could stop it from working!).

These days the main risk comes from regulators making Crypto laws that adversely affect activities on a Blockchain. But the days of fearing Cryptocurrency was going to be globally banned seem to be over.

Risks of investing in Ethereum – Asset Safety

When you buy Ethereum, you have effectively two choices of where to put it: (1) keep it local to you, or (2) trust someone else to hold it (such as an exchange, or a company offering Crypto financial services).

If you follow good practice, then you can minimise any risks that your funds are lost or hacked. The biggest risk being that of leaving your coins at an exchange, because exchanges are the biggest target for hackers.

If you have custody of your assets, make sure that it’s in a reliable wallet and that you have kept a record of any “key phrases” that the wallet gave you.

If you’re giving custody of your assets to another company, make sure they’re trustworthy and secure. Are they an authorised virtual assets provider? Who does their security? Have they been hacked before? What’s their trading history? The danger here is if companies crash.

OK, Ethereum sounds good, now what?

First of all, heed the warnings of the disclaimers: don’t borrow money to invest in Crypto. Don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose. Do your own research to see if investing in Crypto is right for you. Invest for as long a time period as you can: that gives you the maximum opportunity to judge your exit point.

Now, if you’re still here, how about checking out an easy option that allows you to buy and hold ETH with a trustworthy and reliable company with a long trading record? You might as well make your ETH work for you while you’re waiting for it to go to the moon!

Here at AQRU, we are an authorised virtual assets provider involved in Decentralised Finance that offers 0% returns on Ethereum (or Bitcoin) that you lodge with us.

You can even save a lot of hassle and transmission fees by buying the Ethereum in the app through our third-party trusted provider MoonPay (fees apply for Crypto card purchases).

The only other fee is $20 for a withdrawal to Crypto (but free to withdraw to fiat currencies).

Other benefits include a flat rate on all your Crypto, and you can diversify with separate Bitcoin and US Dollar Stablecoin accounts (we offer up to 7% APY, compounded for those!).

You can sign up for free in our app or website, and we will invest 10USDC for you to demonstrate how our system works. You can see your amount increasing every second (the yield is actually paid per day).

Once you’ve passed verification, the minimum amount you can deposit is the equivalent of 100 Euros, and there’s even a referral system that pays $75.

As a one-stop-shop for buying and investing ETH, give it a look. At least you can say it’s ETHical investing!

The post Is Ethereum a good investment? appeared first on AQRU.

Ethereum was the first “smart” Cryptocurrency. It was launched a few years after Bitcoin, which is the granddaddy of Cryptocurrency and still the market leader.

Ethereum is purely digital and exists in digital space as a huge virtual system, maintained by computers all over the world. Unlike Bitcoin, which was designed to be a replacement for traditional currencies, Ethereum was designed to be a world computer capable of running applications and hosting financial systems.

The Ethereum “Blockchain” supports not only the usual ledger entries and addresses that can store quantities of tokens (like Bitcoin), but also supports “Smart Contracts” – that is, bits of code for specific tasks: such as “check that input against a list, and send funds to this list of addresses if it’s OK”.

The whole system runs on Ether (ETH) – the native token of the Ethereum Blockchain. ETH is used to pay the Blockchain to run the Smart Contracts, called a “Gas Fee”. These fees are also payable in ETH when you move other tokens around.

Tokens? Yes, and lots of them. Tokens are like Cryptocurrencies but they live on someone else’s Blockchain: in this case, Ethereum.

Because Ethereum is a smart Blockchain, it’s capable of being programmed to support many different business rules (called “Tokenomics”). There are thousands of these, from single unique tokens (called NFTs – “Non-Fungible Tokens”) to security tokens (a bit like digital stocks and shares), to Stablecoins (coins that exist to represent a real-world asset digitally, such as the US Dollar, or gold). Ethereum is also a key home to third-party protocols allowing Ethereum users to “be their own bank” – DeFi (“Decentralised Finance”).

Ethereum has been wildly successful, which has brought a wide range of problems too.

Moneymaker 1: Mine!

In its initial form (ETH 1.0), ETH is generated by “mining”: where computers worldwide compete to solve a mathematical puzzle to earn the right to process transactions for a fee. This uses a lot of power: and though 70% of Crypto mining uses renewable energy, it’s still a bottleneck. Currently, this is leading to high gas fees. This mining process is called “Proof of Work”, because computers are using their work (and electricity) to earn new ETH.

How can you make money?

There are mining companies such as Shamining that allow you to rent processing power from them that they put to use in “mining pools”. This earns you a share of the Ethereum earned by that pool.

Pros: Easy to start and deposit any amount you like.

Cons: Ethereum 2.0 is going to put an end to mining Ethereum, mining companies are unregulated, you never get your mining fee back, and the ETH generated varies in value.

Moneymaker 2: Everything’s at Stake!

The problems with speed, capacity and “Proof of Work” prompted Ethereum developers to plan out an Ethereum 2.0 (ETH 2.0). The upgrade is faster and moves to a concept called “Proof of Stake”, which is a lot kinder to the environment.

Instead of powerful computers competing to solve puzzles to earn the right to process transactions, users of the system called “validators” lock up (“stake”) a certain number of ETH to earn that right. They also have to keep a system running 24 hours a day to process the transactions.

How can you make money?

Despite the fact that ETH 2.0 is not fully launched, it’s still possible to stake ETH and make a return: according to the official status panel, staking is currently returning about 4.2% per year for validators.

Note that the ETH stake is still yours, so you benefit/suffer from any underlying value changes.

Solo Home Staking

This is where you have to commit 32ETH, and also commit to running the Ethereum software 24/7 in case you’re picked to validate transactions.

Pros: It’s just you and the Blockchain: there’s no other company involved (i.e. no KYC or AML, though most ways you’d buy the ETH would require that).

Cons: It requires you to commit 32 ETH: that is a lot of ETH (over $96,000 worth). This is equivalent to you investing $96,000 into a 4.2% interest-bearing account, but you stand a chance of losing out if your system goes offline.

Staking as a Service

You can give someone else your 32 ETH and they will run the software for you.

Pros: You don’t have to run a validator

Cons: Still costs 32 ETH. Obviously, this is a chargeable service so there would be fees. Also, you have to trust the company providing the service.

Pooled Staking

This is where staking becomes viable for everyone. You can put in as little as you like, and get a share of the rewards.

Pros: Accessible, lots of options. You keep control of your Crypto.

Cons: This isn’t native to the Blockchain, so you’re relying on the integrity of a third-party company. Still only 4.2% return according to Ethereum’s own figures.

Centralised Exchanges

Some exchanges offer (or will offer) the chance to stake the ETH you just bought with them.

Pros: An easy and affordable option.

Cons: Return only 4.2% (if you even get that), the exchange has control of your Crypto, and exchanges are giant targets for hackers.

Moneymaker 3: Buy and Hold

This is probably the simplest option to understand, though there is a question of where to buy, and where to hold!

ETH: is it actually worth anything?

But first: if you’re about to buy a load of Ethereum: is it actually worth anything? Is it just hype? Or is there something behind it?

Well, one thing about the hype process is that it tends to be short-lived: just look at the craze around NFTs, for instance.

Ethereum has been functioning and growing since 2015, and its functioning needs people to buy ETH. The bigger the Blockchain gets, the more ETH is needed, and the price tends up over time. It’s supply and demand.

Unlike Bitcoin (max: 21 million coins), there’s no theoretical maximum amount of Ethereum that can exist. But there’s a finite supply at any given point. Demand greatly outstrips supply because Ethereum is useful. So, it’s worth something. Also, no hype can last 7 years and counting!

HODLing Time

All of the other options excluding mining involve actually buying ETH, so the big question is: is the underlying investment worth it?

ETH has historically gone up over the long term, though there have also been years where you’d have lost 90% of the value of your holdings (these were recovered later, but it took a long time).

If ETH 2.0 is a success, you’d expect ETH to be worth a lot more than it is now as more and more finance options jump on it. If ETH 2.0 is a failure, there might be a slow decline as activities move to a new Blockchain.

Pros: HODLing as a strategy doesn’t involve trusting anyone if you’re keeping it in your own wallet.

Cons: Unlike the other strategies, it doesn’t generate any income.

Moneymaker 4: Trading

The concept is simple: buy low, sell high! And do it at an exchange that charges low fees and has a good order book, otherwise, you’re punished for every move you make! INX Crypto is the lowest fee exchange, but there are others, such as Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, Bittrex, Bitstamp and more.

But should you trade? While good Crypto tends to appreciate over the long-term, on a day-to-day basis, its value is all over the place. Unfortunately, the tools that might help you in a traditional finance environment (such as “Technical Analysis”) are much less help in Crypto because external events are more common, and the ability for a flurry of atypical orders to affect the price is larger.

You can make a lot of money stuck in front of a screen getting lucky: but you can lose a lot of money stuck in front of a screen getting unlucky.

As with all investments, if you do this, make sure it’s with money you’re prepared to lose! And make sure you do the maths so you’re not losing your profit in exchange fees.

Pros: Nerve-tingling excitement 24/7. You could make a lot of money.

Cons: Nerve-tingling excitement 24/7. You could lose a lot of money.

Moneymaker 5: Earn Interest on your ETH

Pros: Simple. Guaranteed returns are larger than staking and mining.

Cons: You’ve got to trust the company.

Of all the options that involve making money on ETH, the simplest one with the best return is to leave your ETH with a company that pays a guaranteed return: or even, buy the ETH in-app to avoid transmission fees: something you can do with a credit card.

AQRU is an established provider of interest-bearing Crypto accounts, covering ETH as well as Bitcoin and USD Stablecoins. We have an app and website to make this easy and are an authorised virtual assets provider.

We offer 0% interest on all your ETH, with no fees except third-party fees for buying Crypto with our in-app provider MoonPay, and a $20 fee to withdraw to Crypto (but no fee to withdraw to “real” (fiat) currency).

Because interest is paid daily and re-invested, you also benefit from compound interest. Other attractions are a free 10USDC Stablecoin investment to get you going, and a referral bonus (T&Cs apply, obviously).

And of course, it’s still your ETH, so if it goes to the moon, you go with it! Sign up today and start AQRUing.

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