Should I Buy Ethereum And What Should I Do With It?

Dipping Your Toes

Should I Buy Ethereum? This is a common question asked by the Bitcoin or cryptocurrency enthusiast that usually isn't a total beginner but hasn't ventured deep into the space of Altcoins either. Ethereum is typically the first bridge or segway from traditional Bitcoin investment into the world of Altcoins. And with the purchase of Altcoins comes a much higher risk and much higher reward, if you end up being correct.

Before we begin, we must state that MintDice is not a financial advisor and any information inside of this article should solely be used for entertainment purposes. If you wish to invest in any cryptocurrencies it is best that you speak with a financial advisor and discuss your plans with them first.

Now, onto the question of the day, “Should I Buy Ethereum”?

The most important question is what value you see in the technology both in the present and future, how likely you think it is to hold it's second place throne, and if it will be able to attract talent from Blockchain development specialists or not. And to be quite honest, almost every single one of those questions is highly debatable which will take a lot of doing your own research (DYOR) to determine, but we can offer you a few good starting points.

Know Ethereum's Technology And Beginning

First, understand that a lot of Ethereum's value comes from two major origins: That it is a smart contract platform and that it was the first major smart contract platform to hit the market. Being the first to market in a financial economy, especially one such as cryptocurrency, is extremely powerful. You receive a lot of name recognition, a lot of software development and a lot of early economic investment that you simply just do not see in second order projects even if they are of slightly higher quality. Meanwhile, the smart contract notion of Ethereum provides a specific Blockchain Technology value to the Blockchain ecosystem that simply cannot presently be provided by the Bitcoin Blockchain as of yet (until bootstrapped 2.0 technology gets released at a later date, if ever).

With those advantages understood for Ethereum, it's time to understand it's limitations. As a first mover, similar to Bitcoin in it's own niche, it was relatively underdeveloped technology initially that has many technical implications and leads to a lot of political battles at this point over which direction to take the future of Ethereum development. There was already one major political battle with the release of Ethereum classic following the DAO hack. More battles are yet to come as Ethereum developers decide which direction is the correct direction to scale the technology to ready itself for more intensive worldwide implementations that can process more than some small number of transactions per second (TPS).

Political battles and turmoil aside, there are many competitors that are attempting to create alternatives to Ethereum that will tout many different advantages over Ethereum's technology be that a higher throughput of TPS, less prone to attacks, better underlying or scalable software, better privacy features or any other numerous software features they can encourage people to use their systems. And there is a huge price tag on getting to become the creator of the coin that eventually becomes the de-facto smart contract coin of the future era so you can believe there will be a lot of development, intelligence and talent that gets put to work developing alternative Blockchains to compete with Ethereum. This in and of itself is a huge threat to the Ethereum ecosystem and one that is substantially larger of a threat to Ethereum than are Altcoins to the Bitcoin blockchain – but that is a separate discussion for another time.

The Decision Is Up To You

Once you understand the pros and cons of the Ethereum situation, you may now be at least somewhat educated as to whether or not you should buy Ethereum. And let's just say that you do end up buying Ethereum, what then?

There are many options that you have for Ethereum and let's go over the three major options that exist for Ethereum owners:

1. Holding. We recommend storing your Ethereum on a Trezor with your Myetherwallet and simply just holding. This is the easiest method for long term believers in the technology that are relatively new to the field of Altcoins and cryptocurrency.

2. Investing into ICOs. With ICOs you need to be extremely careful and understand exactly what it is your buying into as many ICOs are straight up scams and many ICO projects are also managed quite poorly. You also need to ensure the terms of your deal are a good one relative to what other individuals are receiving. But if you are sure everything is on the up and up, buying into ICOs with your Ethereum may be a worthwhile cause.

3. Playing Ethereum games or other such Ethereum casino games to test your luck with Ethereum or to earn Ethereum playing games of skill. You may also invest your Ethereum into various casino crowdfunded bankrolls making for a great way to earn via Ethereum investment.

With that all out of the way, you should be fairly well informed as to the pros and cons of the future of Ethereum and what to do with your Ethereum that you do hold. Stay safe and to the Moon Ethereum!