Ethereum is a programmable blockchain that is capable of hosting applications and tokens. This functionality has seen it become the home of decentralised finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The blockchain’s native ETH token is used to pay transaction fees and power the Ethereum ecosystem.
On this page, we’ll be discussing where and how to buy Ethereum UK, along with other important considerations, such as payment methods, wallets, and how and why you might want to invest in Ethereum.
The easiest way to buy Ethereum in the UK is to purchase it online from a crypto exchange. Exchanges make it easy to buy and sell Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies directly from your smartphone, tablet or computer. Check out our recommended platforms below and follow the steps to safely buy Ethereum in the UK.
Decide which platform you want to use to make your purchase. A regulated platform is the safest option, and you should select one with strong security, transparent fees, and all the features you need. Check out our top picks below.
Click the join button and fill in any personal information that is required. You will need to upload an image of your photo ID so your account can be verified. After that, you can go to the deposit page, choose your preferred payment method, and transfer some funds.
Use the search box to look for the ETH/GBP trading pair and create a buy order. You can use a limit order if you want to specify a price to buy ETH at in the future. To make a purchase now, enter how much you want in a market order and click “Buy”.
There are many platforms you can use to buy ETH in the UK. This section will review some of the best options.
eToro’s impressive reputation and innovative features make it the number one place to buy Ethereum in the UK. You can keep up with ETH’s price action by adding it to your watchlist and using the news, statistics, and research tabs to conduct fundamental and technical analysis.
The platform is very intuitive to use, making it suitable for beginners. In addition to Ethereum, users can trade over 60 other cryptocurrencies and more traditional financial instruments, like stocks, ETFs, and forex.
What makes eToro unique is its social investing features. You can share your experiences with other ETH traders and take advantage of their collective wisdom. You can even replicate the trades of the world’s best ETH traders with the innovative CopyTrader feature.
The platform is regulated by the FCA and has strong security features, such as SSL encryption and cold storage. There is a transparent 1% fee plus spread when you buy or sell ETH, and you need to deposit a minimum of about £8 to get started. Read our full eToro review here.
Pros
User-friendly
Transparent fees
Regulated by the FCA
Strong security
Copy trading
Good range of payment options
Demo account
Mobile app
Cons
PayPal deposits unavailable in the UK
Fewer cryptocurrencies than some competitors
Binance is the cheapest way to buy Ethereum in the UK, with its market-beating trading fees of just 0.1% or less. The minimum deposit for UK users is £2 by bank transfer or £15 by credit/debit card, and the smallest amount of ETH you can buy is £10. There is a £1 fee for bank transfers and a 1.8% fee for cards. The ETH withdrawal fee is up to 0.0012 ETH, depending on the blockchain used.
It has a good range of trading features, like customisable charts and technical tools, as well as the option to trade with leverage and trade futures. It’s also great for those wanting to build a diverse portfolio, as there are over 600 coins available.
Beginners who would prefer to avoid the advanced tools can make simple ETH purchases with a bank transfer or credit/debit card under the Buy Crypto tab, or use Binance Convert to easily swap between ETH and any other coin.
One of Binance’s most attractive features is the Earn section, where investors can put their ETH into savings accounts, stake it in ETH 2.0, or use higher-yield-earning products, like dual investment, liquid swap, and DeFi staking. Read our full Binance review here.
Low trading fees
Advanced trading tools
Over 600 other coins
Margin trading and ETH futures
Ways to earn interest on ETH
Educational materials
Limited payment options for UK users
Not regulated by the FCA
If you want a simple way to buy ETH, Coinbase is the platform for you. Just click on the “Buy / Sell” button at the top, select Ethereum from the more than 150 available coins, and enter how much you want to buy. It’s great for small-time investors as you can purchase as little as £2.
To learn more about Ethereum, and crypto in general, you can access Coinbase’s range of educational materials. There’s even the opportunity to earn some free crypto through the regular learn and earn campaigns that Coinbase runs.
If you want to get ETH price alerts, you can add Ethereum to your watchlist, while your portfolio’s past performance is clearly displayed in your dashboard. The recurring buys feature is great for setting up regular automatic purchases, and there are more advanced trading tools available on the Coinbase Pro platform.
Coinbase keeps your ETH secure with offline storage and crypto-insurance, and the platform has been granted an e-money licence by the FCA. There is a minimum deposit of £50, and you can trade ETH for competitive fees of 0.6% plus the spread. Read our full Coinbase review here.
Easy to use
£2 order minimum
Recurring buys
Educational resources
Licensed by the FCA
Industry-leading security
High minimum deposit
Limited payment methods for UK customers
Bitpanda is one of the safest places to buy ETH as it keeps all user assets in offline storage. The platform is also compliant with Anti-Money Laundering rules and fully regulated, holding all the necessary licences.
Users have rated the platform as excellent on Trustpilot, and you can learn more about crypto in the Bitpanda Academy or access information about using the platform in the Helpdesk. If you want to set up recurring buys of ETH, you can use the Bitpanda savings plan.
Bitpanda is great if you want to buy Ethereum as part of a diversified portfolio. As well as over 200 other cryptocurrencies, the platform offers crypto indices, stocks, metals, and ETFs. You can even make direct swaps between different asset classes.
You will need to deposit at least £25 to get started, and there is a good range of payment methods available. After that, you can purchase as little as £1 worth of ETH, with the price including a 1.49% premium.
Licensed and secure
Highly rated on Trustpilot
Swap between different asset types
Purchase as little as £1
Range of payment options available in the UK
Only email support is available
Crypto deposits carry fees
If you’re looking for reliable customer support while you purchase ETH, Bitstamp provides global email and telephone support 24/7. The platform also produces a free Crypto Pulse report that details global trends and market insights.
There are 75 cryptocurrencies available on Bitstamp, and its high liquidity and uptime mean that order execution is fast. The platform offers tools for analysis, advanced order types, and real-time data streaming, as well as a powerful range of APIs for deploying algorithmic strategies.
Personal information is secured by encryption, and users can take advantage of address whitelisting and transaction confirmations. The platform’s industry-leading security measures also include storing 98% of assets offline. Bitstamp enables users to take part in Ethereum 2.0 staking for a 15% fee.
The minimum deposit is £10, and UK users can make free deposits via Faster Payments, while card purchases incur a 5% fee. The trading fees for purchasing ETH are up to 0.5%, and GBP withdrawals via Faster Payments carry a £2 fee.
Access phone and email support around the clock
Fast order execution
Intuitive interface
Free deposits via Faster Payments
High fees for instant card purchases
Experienced Ethereum traders will find plenty to satisfy them on OKX’s feature-rich platform, including charting tools, a range of order types, and technical indicators. There are more than 340 other cryptocurrencies available, and you can set up arbitrage orders and smart portfolios with the trading bot.
There is margin trading and ETH derivatives, such as futures and options, but beginners can still make simple card purchases or easily swap between ETH and other coins with the Convert feature. What’s more, once you’ve bought some ETH, you have the opportunity to earn more with products such as staking, savings accounts, and DeFi.
There is a good range of articles, tutorials, and analysis in the Learn section of the website, and OKX keeps your ETH safe with offline storage, emergency backups, and a semi-offline multi-signature mechanism for online storage.
The minimum deposit is 0.001 ETH, and the smallest amount of ETH you can purchase by card is £9, with a 1.99% fee. The trading fees are very competitive at up to 0.1%, and the minimum trade size is 0.001 ETH.
Trading bot
Low fees
340+ other coins
Margin trading and ETH derivatives
Limits on withdrawals
No fiat deposits
This tutorial will take you through how to buy ETH on eToro in more detail.
At the top of the eToro website, click on the “Join Now” button to be taken to the registration page. Once you have filled in your email address, username, and password, simply accept the terms and conditions and click on the “Create Account” button.
You can verify your email address by clicking on the link emailed to you, and then complete your profile with details such as your full name, date of birth, address, and National Insurance number. You’ll also need to answer a few questions about your investment experience and attitude to risk. Once you’ve entered your phone number, verify it with the code you will receive by text.
Hit the “Deposit Funds” button, choose GBP as the currency, and enter the amount you wish to deposit. You can select credit/debit card, bank transfer, Rapid Transfer, Neteller, Skrill, or Trustly as the payment method. Then, simply follow the onscreen instructions and provide any other information requested in order to complete your payment.
Find Ethereum by typing it into the search bar at the top. If you click on the “Trade” button, a window will pop up where you can fill in how much ETH you want to buy. You can switch to Order if you want to create a limit order to purchase at a future price. Otherwise, just click “Open Trade” to complete your ETH purchase.
If you have some BTC that you want to use to buy ETH, there are a few different ways of doing this. Platforms like Binance and OKX that have a Convert feature enable you to make quick and simple swaps between different cryptocurrencies—just set BTC as the From currency and ETH as the To currency.
Both of these platforms also have ETH/BTC trading pairs, allowing you to trade your BTC for ETH with more advanced tools and a choice of order types. If you’re using a platform like eToro that doesn’t offer direct trading between BTC and ETH, you can still buy Ethereum with Bitcoin by adding in an extra step. Just sell your BTC for fiat and then use that fiat to purchase ETH.
If you’re wondering whether it’s better to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, this depends on your personal preferences and what you want to do with it. ETH has more functionality—it is needed to pay fees for using the many apps and tokens hosted on Ethereum, while it also has uses in DeFi.
Meanwhile, as Bitcoin doesn’t host apps and tokens, most people buy it as an investment. As for which coin makes the better investment, this is again a matter of taste. Bitcoin is still the most popular cryptocurrency and is seen by many as the least risky crypto investment. It has received the most institutional investment, and its price is less affected by project development and competition than ether’s.
ETH’s price is a bit more volatile, but this also means the potential for greater returns—ETH price surged much more than BTC price during the last bull run—in fact, some believe that Ethereum will one day overtake Bitcoin in terms of market cap in an event known as the “flippening”. What’s more, ETH holders have the option to stake their coins in Ethereum 2.0 to generate a passive income.
Ethereum was launched in 2014 based on a whitepaper by co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The main innovation of Ethereum was that it introduced blockchain-based smart contracts. These are computer programs stored on the blockchain that execute automatically when predetermined conditions are met.
This means Ethereum is programmable. Developers can build applications on top of Ethereum to provide all kinds of services, ranging from DeFi apps like Uniswap or Maker, to oracle networks like Chainlink, to games like Decentraland or the Sandbox.
It is also possible to create and launch new tokens on Ethereum. Many of the most popular cryptocurrencies were created with Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, including USDT, WBTC, and SHIB. There are other Ethereum token standards that are used to create NFTs, such as digital art, like Bored Apes, or in-game items, like the Axies in Axie Infinity.
ETH is used to pay the network fees for creating, running, and using these applications and tokens. The project is in the midst of a number of upgrades, known collectively as Ethereum 2.0. This will see a transition from Ethereum’s current Proof of Work system to a Proof of Stake system, and should result in the blockchain being more efficient and scalable.
The purpose of Ethereum, as described by one of its founders, is to be “one computer for the entire planet”. The innovation of smart contracts means basically any application will be able to run on Ethereum as part of a decentralised global network.
This is something that you will need to decide for yourself as it depends on your own aims and preferences.
Cryptocurrencies like ETH are more accessible for many retail investors as they are easier to buy and sell than other assets, and you can purchase any amount—unlike with shares, it is possible to make a very small investment as you can buy a small fraction of a coin.
Many invest in Ethereum as they believe it has good fundamental value. There’s a strong team behind the project who have also had success with other projects. In addition to Buterin, the co-founders include Gavin Wood, who created Polkadot; Charles Hoskinson, who co-founded Cardano; and Joseph Lubin, who founded ConsenSys.
The technology also has strong fundamentals—Ethereum pioneered the concept of smart contracts on the blockchain, improving upon the model of Bitcoin to provide far more functionality. This has enabled thousands of cryptocurrencies to be launched on Ethereum, including many of the most popular coins.
Every time one of these tokens is transferred on the blockchain, and every time someone uses an Ethereum-based app, there is a “gas fee” that must be paid in ETH. This creates demand for ETH, making it more valuable. The development of Web 3.0 will see far more services move onto the blockchain, which could further increase demand.
All of these factors have seen the price of ETH increase astronomically since its launch, and with a much smaller market cap than Bitcoin, it would appear ETH still has a lot of price potential.
What’s more, when the project transitions to Ethereum 2.0, its technological improvements could attract yet more projects, increase investor confidence, and create even more demand.
There are some risks that are the same regardless of the cryptocurrency. These include scams, hacks, and regulatory changes that could limit the trading of crypto. To mitigate these risks, you should only purchase ETH on a reliable and regulated platform, keep it somewhere secure such as offline storage, and never share your passwords or private keys.
When it comes to investment risks specific to Ethereum, the gas fees can become very high when the network is congested, sometimes making it uneconomical to move small amounts. The network fees should be more predictable once Ethereum transitions to Proof of Stake, but this is a long and complicated process that has already seen delays. Further delays could harm investor confidence in ETH.
There are many other programmable blockchains that already run on a Proof of Stake model. If there are any issues with Ethereum development, projects and developers may choose to build on Ethereum’s more efficient competitors instead.
There are a number of different ways you can purchase ETH. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular payment methods in the UK.
Many find this a convenient payment method, and you can buy Ethereum with a credit card or debit card on any of the platforms reviewed on this page. On the plus side, this is a very fast way to buy ETH, while on the minus side, some platforms charge higher fees for card purchases. Binance, for example, charges a 1.8% fee for card deposits and Coinbase a 2.49% fee. The cheapest way to make a card deposit is on eToro, where there are no fees.
Bank transfers are a popular way of buying ETH as they are often the cheapest option. Some platforms support Faster Payments in the UK, allowing you to receive your funds very quickly. Bank deposits on Binance carry a £1 fee, while there is no fee for bank transfers on eToro or Coinbase.
PayPal’s speed and convenience make it a popular choice for online payments, but it is harder to buy Ethereum with PayPal in the UK than in some other countries. Although UK customers can use PayPal to cash out on Coinbase, none of the platforms on this page accept PayPal deposits from UK users. You can, however, buy ETH with PayPal directly on the PayPal platform.
Skrill is a digital wallet provider that makes it quick and easy to pay for things online. Both eToro and Bitpanda accept Skrill deposits from their UK users. Like all payment methods, Skrill deposits are free on eToro.
There are a few different ways you could invest in Ethereum, depending on how much skill, risk appetite, and free time you have.
This is the go-to investment strategy for many new investors as it’s straightforward and anyone can do it—you just need to buy some ETH and hold onto it for a while. Buy and hold is the strategy to choose if you believe in the long-term value of Ethereum and you don’t want to spend time doing technical analysis or constantly monitoring the market.
Those who want to be more active to generate more regular short-term profits might prefer to trade Ethereum. This requires more skill and time than buy and hold, as traders tend to monitor price movements and conduct technical analysis in order to find the best entry and exit points.
The FCA banned the trading of crypto derivatives for retail traders, meaning you can no longer access crypto futures, options, or CFDs on regulated platforms.
Anyone can mine Ethereum to help secure the network and earn block rewards, but not everyone can make a profit from it. This generally requires spending a lot of money on specialised hardware, electricity to power it, and fees for joining a mining pool. Many therefore find it preferable to purchase a cloud mining contract, so the difficult work will be done for them by a company such as CCG Mining .
Once Ethereum transitions to a Proof of Stake network, mining will be switched off and the network will be secured by validators instead.
You can also generate a passive income on your ETH holdings by staking it in Ethereum 2.0. Although you need 32 ETH to stake directly in ETH 2.0, some platforms, like Binance, let you stake a smaller amount through them.
There is a wide variety of places you could store your ETH. Below is a breakdown of the different types of options available.
Web wallet: This is the most convenient type of wallet for those who are holding a small amount of ETH or making regular trades with it. As web wallets can be a target for hackers, it is important to choose a secure platform, such as the ones reviewed in this guide.
Mobile wallet: You can download a mobile wallet onto your smartphone as a convenient way to store your ETH. MetaMask is the most popular Ethereum-based wallet and enables you to connect to decentralised applications (dApps), as well as store all your ERC-20 tokens and NFTs.
Desktop wallet: Similar to a mobile wallet, a desktop wallet is downloaded onto your computer. Exodus and Atomic Wallet are two of the most popular desktop wallet providers that support Ethereum.
Hardware wallet: This is the most secure type of wallet, making it ideal for long-term investors with a large amount of ETH. Your ETH will be stored offline on a physical device such as a USB stick. Trezor, BitBox, and Ledger are some of the most popular hardware wallets that support Ethereum.
Paper wallet: You can use an online key generator to create a public and private key, and then write down or print the resultant character strings or QR codes to make a paper wallet. However, this isn’t a very secure way to store your ETH.
You may prefer to combine more than one of the above wallet types, depending on your activities. Ledger provides the Ledger Live app, which you can download to manage your ETH easily in conjunction with their hardware device.
If, for example, you are both an investor and a trader, you might want to keep some ETH in a hardware wallet for long-term storage and keep some in an exchange wallet for easy trading access.
Public and private keys are long alphanumeric strings used for encryption on blockchains. You can share your public key with anyone in order to receive transactions, but you should never share your private key, as this is what you use to access your funds.
Hardware wallets are the most secure as they keep your private keys offline, where no one will be able to hack into them. Mobile and desktop wallets store your keys on your device. If you use an exchange wallet, you can access your wallet address (a hashed version of your public key used for receiving funds), but you won’t be able to access your private keys as the exchange keeps control of them.
To make this decision, you will want to consider the points discussed in the section above on whether Ethereum is a good investment, but here are a few more things to think about.
When you purchase ETH or any other cryptocurrency, you will need to pay a trading fee or commission on your purchase. This fee is 1% plus spread on eToro, up to 0.1% on Binance, and 0.6% plus spread on Coinbase.
There may be other fees involved, such as deposit fees. These vary depending on your payment method and platform, but all deposits are free on eToro. Other platform fees you may run into include withdrawal, account management, and inactivity fees.
There are also gas fees on the Ethereum network that you will need to pay if you transfer ETH with a private wallet or interact with Ethereum-based dApps. The gas fees vary depending on network congestion but can be very high when the network is busy.
You won’t have any legal protection if your ETH is lost or stolen as cryptoassets are unregulated in the UK, which is why it is important to only use reputable and regulated platforms. It is perfectly legal to buy and sell ETH at your own risk in the UK, but the FCA has banned retail trading of ETH derivatives such as futures, options, and CFDs.
There is no tax in the UK for buying ETH, but if your gains are above the tax-free threshold, you will need to report them to HMRC and pay Capital Gains Tax when you sell or otherwise dispose of your ETH. You may need to pay Income Tax if you earn ETH from certain DeFi activities. You can find detailed information on which crypto activities are taxed in the UK and how to report them in our Crypto Tax UK Guide.
This is a personal choice that depends on your investment goals and strategy. The exact entry point isn’t that important for long-term investors as they believe the price of ETH will trend upwards overall in the long term.
Shorter-term investors may choose to buy and sell based on certain events, such as project developments or news about regulation or the economy. If you employ a particular trading strategy, you will likely generate buy and sell signals from technical indicators, like the relative strength index or Fibonacci retracement. You could even buy and sell at the same time as a professional trader by using eToro’s CopyTrader feature.
Many investors aim to buy ETH during a price dip, which requires some understanding of ETH price and how to predict it, which will be discussed below.
The price of ETH is affected by many diverse factors, from project-specific events to the behaviour of the wider crypto market to global economic conditions. For example, an important Ethereum upgrade could be good for ETH price, while a delay in development could be bad.
You can check the project roadmap to see how Ethereum updates are progressing. To find out what effect this and other factors might have on the future value of ETH, take a look at our Ethereum price prediction page.
The safest way to buy ETH in the UK is to do so through a reputable and regulated platform, especially one that has received licences from the FCA, such as eToro. Regulated platforms tend to provide the best security features, such as cold storage, two-factor authentication, address whitelisting, and crypto insurance.
If you transfer your ETH to a private wallet, you should keep your private key somewhere secure and never share it with anyone. If your wallet has a seed phrase, you should keep that safe, too, in case you ever need to recover access to your wallet after a device failure.
Always be on the lookout for scams. You may receive emails that seem like they are from your platform or wallet provider, but check their provenance to be sure. Your platform or wallet provider will never ask you to share passwords or private keys.
Platforms that are regulated in the UK require their users to complete the Know Your Customer process and verify their identity before making a purchase in order to comply with Anti-Money Laundering laws.
This means that to buy ETH anonymously, you would need to do so on an unregulated platform, such as a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace. Paxful, for example, allows users to buy ETH from certain sellers without completing KYC. This means you could set up an account with a fake email address and pay with an anonymous payment method such as Google Pay, PayPal, or a prepaid card.
Decentralised exchanges (DEXs) are another type of unregulated platform that allow users to buy ETH anonymously. All you need to use a DEX is a wallet such as MetaMask, which you can create without providing any personal information. DEXs only enable you to swap between different cryptocurrencies, though, so you would first need to acquire another cryptocurrency to swap for ETH.
However, this is a more complicated and risky way to buy ETH as unregulated platforms may attract scammers. It is therefore safer and easier to use a regulated platform, as KYC only usually takes a few minutes and it is perfectly legal to buy ETH in the UK.
A centralised exchange (CEX), like the ones reviewed on this page, is run by a company that facilitates the trades and takes a fee for doing so. When you want to buy ETH, you create a buy order that goes into the exchange’s order book, where it is matched with a sell order.
Meanwhile, a decentralised exchange isn’t operated by any central authority. Insead, it runs on the blockchain through smart contracts and there is no intermediary between traders. DEXs typically use liquidity pools—users can contribute their tokens to pools of assets and trades are then made against these pools, with the fees generated being used to pay the liquidity providers.
CEXs are attractive to beginners because they are usually much easier to use and have a more intuitive interface. They’re popular with advanced traders as well because they often provide access to charts and technical trading tools. These things aren’t available on DEXs, which also tend to be limited in the types of orders you can create.
You may prefer a DEX if you want to trade anonymously and keep full custody of your assets at all times. However, you will still need to buy some crypto elsewhere to get started as DEXs don’t support fiat trading, and the gas fees can get pretty high when there is network congestion.
The right time to sell ETH depends on your strategy. If you opt for the buy and hold option, you will likely wait a long time before you sell. Meanwhile, if you use a trading strategy, you may be looking for a particular signal from a technical indicator to tell you when to sell.
The selling process is very similar to the buying process. On eToro, for example, it is just as straightforward. Just head to your portfolio, click on ETH, and click the “Close” button next to it. You can tick “Close only part of the trade” if you only want to sell some of your ETH.
On other platforms, you may have the option of creating a market sell order to sell immediately at the current price, or a limit sell order that lets you specify a price to sell at in the future.
As Ethereum is one of the most popular coins, you have a wide choice of places to buy it in the UK. The options vary in many aspects, such as the features they offer, the fees they charge, and the user experience they provide, meaning there’s a platform to suit every kind of Ethereum investor or trader.
Our analysis suggests that the best place to buy ETH in the UK is eToro, as it has a transparent fee structure, tools to suit both beginners and experts, and features that you can’t get anywhere else, like copy trading. There’s a detailed tutorial on how to buy ETH on eToro earlier in this guide to help you get started.
We have various quality control processes in place to give you a reason to trust us. We rigorously research and test the platforms we review in order to provide you with the best recommendations and help you make more informed investment decisions.
The things we test for on each platform we review include how to sign up to it, how to make a deposit, which assets are available, what types of trading are offered, fees charged, speed and interface, location and regulation, cross-platform compatibility, security, features and services available, educational resources, and customer support.