Where to buy ether: Top-5 cryptocurrency exchanges

The demand for ethers is rocketing, as the hard fork giving life to Ethereum Classic fuelled the interest to both versions of the cryptocurrency. CoinFox has chosen 5 best crypto exchanges trading ether-bitcoin pair.

Poloniex

Trading volume — 51.54%

Ethereum Classic — yes

Currency pairs — ETH/BTC, ETC/BTC, ETC/ETH, ETH/USDT, DAO/ETH, STEEM/ETH

Poloniex exchange keeps the largest share of the ether market. The total number of fiat and digital currencies traded by this exchange exceeds 100. Since 24 July 2016, Poloniex started trading the alternative token Ethereum Classic.

Kraken

Trading volume — 20.93%

Ethereum Classic — yes

Currency pairs — ETH/BTC, ETC/BTC, ETC/ETH, ETH/USD, ETC/USD, ETH/CAD, ETH/EUR, ETC/EUR, DAO/ETH

Kraken, which was the first crypto exchange having its market data displayed on Bloomberg terminals, is the second by the trading volume of ether and is responsible for about 21% of deals with the cryptocurrency. It is remarkable that Kraken is the only exchange to provide operations with ether against quite a wide range of fiat currencies – euro, US dollar, Canadian dollar and British pound.

In May 2016, Kraken launched ether “dark pool” trading, which gives clients the opportunity to trade anonymously.

Alongside this, the exchange has announced some other moves in favour of ether owners. Margin trade was enhanced, in particular, through increasing leverage for ETH/BTC from 2.5x up to 4x. This means that a transaction carried out with borrowed money only requires a collateral equal to 25% of the sum of the transaction. This step makes it possible to do risky transactions but increases the liquidity of the currency.

Bitfinex

Trading volume — 11.18%

Ethereum Classic — yes

Currency pairs — ETH/BTC, ETH/USD, ETC/BTC, ETC/USD

This exchange platform started trading the ETH/USD and ETH/BTC pairs on 14 March 2016. The decision to include new cryptocurrency was due to customers’ request and the growing volumes of ether trading on other exchange platforms. Bitfinex also considers adding the ETH/EUR pair to the trading options.

GDAX (former Coinbase Exchange)

Trading volume — 4.02%

Ethereum Classic — no

Currency pairs — ETH/BTC, ETH/USD

On 22 July 2016, Coinbase started supporting Ethereum tokens in their post-fork version and accept them for all products of the platform.

In May 2016, Coinbase launched a digital exchange platform for professional traders GDAX, which already supported ether in 33 countries.

GDAX does not currently support Ethereum Classic. The company announced that the old-version Ethereum tokens that were on GDAX accounts before the hard fork are placed to the exchange’s cold storage and soon will be available for withdrawal.

As for the mother company, the payment tools available for bitcoin users including credit card payments and bank transfers will be used for purchasing and selling ethers as well.

Gemini

Trading volume — 0.07%

Ethereum Classic — undecided

Currency pairs — ETH/BTC, ETH/USD

Gemini was launched in October 2015, after the New York State Department of Financial Services allowed it to operate in 31 US states and in Washington DC. It became the second bitcoin trader after itBit to receive a license from the NYFDS. In February 2016, the exchange introduced multi-user accounts for working groups and families. In May 2016, Gemini became the first licensed ether exchange in the world. Ether trading started on 9 May.

Following the Ethereum hard fork, the exchange sticks to the updated version of ether. “We have not yet decided whether to open matching engines for ETC trading,” the company's website states.

Gemini bitcoin exchange was founded by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, major venture capital investors who, according to some rumours, own 1% of all bitcoin stock.