What is Ether?
Ether is the name of the currency used in Ethereum to pay for computations within the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This is done indirectly by buying gas for ether, explained in gas.
denomination
Ethereum has a system of measurement of denominations, which are used as units of ether. Each denomination has its own unique name (some with the last names of figures who played a seminal role in the evolution of computer science and cryptoeconomics). The smallest denomination is the base unit of ether, called Wei. The list below is the denomination name and Wei's value conversion. Ethereum follows the convention (albeit somewhat ambiguous) of specifying a monetary unit (1e18 or Wei to the power of a million). Note that many people mistakenly think that currency is called Ethereum, but Ethereum is not a currency unit.
Unit conversion list: Refer to "Ethereum Homestead Documentation" page 52 1.4.1 What is ether?
ether supply
- https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/04/10/the-issuance-model-in-ethereum/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/44zy88/clarification_on_ether_supply_and_cost_of_gas/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/45vj4g/question_about_scarcity_of_ethereum_and_its/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/48yqg6/is_there_a_cap_like_with_btc_with_how_many_ether/
get ether
To get ether you need
- Become an Ethereum miner (reference mining) or
- Exchange other currencies for ether with a centralized or trustless service
- Using the user-friendly Mist Ethereum GUI wallet, Ether can be purchased from Beta 6 with the http://shapeshift.io/ API.
Trustless service
Note that the particularity of the Ethereum platform is that smart contracts enable trustless services, eliminating the need for trusted third parties in currency exchange transactions, such as disintermediating investment currency exchange operations. Such a project (with alpha/prelaunch at the time of writing this text) has the following characteristics:
• BTCrelay
– More information (about ETH/BTC bidirectional fixation, no need to fix Bitcoin code)
– BTCrelay review
• EtherEx decentralized exchange.
List of Centralized Exchange Markets
Refer to "Ethereum Homestead Documentation" page 53 1.4.3 Getting ether
Centralized fixed exchange rate
| exchange | currency | |
|---|---|---|
| Shapeshift | BTC, LTC, DOGE,Other | | |
| Beats | BTC, USD, EUR, CHF | |
Trade and Price Analysis
- Exhaustive list of ETH markets by volume on coinmarketcap
- Aggregate real-time data for major ETH markets:
– Tradeblock
– EthereumWisdom
– Cryptocompare
– Coinmarketcap