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How to buy Ethereum (ETH): compare your options
Buying Ethereum online comes down to how you pay, where you buy, and which wallet and network the ETH is delivered to. The payment methods available to you, and what each costs, are shown by the provider before you confirm. For a full comparison of buying routes across crypto generally, including exchanges and peer-to-peer marketplaces, see our page dedicated to buying crypto. What follows covers the parts that are specific to Ethereum.
How your Ethereum payment is handled
An Ethereum purchase needs two separate systems to work together: the payment rails your money moves on, and the Ethereum network the ETH moves on. Different parties run them, and each sees something different about the transaction. Knowing which party does what tells you who can actually fix a problem, and who ends up holding which piece of your information.
Who handles what
- The payment provider takes the payment, carries out the identity check and sends the ETH. Card and bank payments are processed by a regulated payment provider rather than by Bitcoin.com, and which provider handles your purchase depends on your country and the payment method you choose.
- Your bank or card issuer decides whether the payment is approved at all, and may ask you to confirm it with a 3-D Secure check. A declined card is its decision, not the provider's and not ours.
- The Ethereum network settles the transfer. Once the transaction has been broadcast it is executed by the network, and the gas described below is paid to the network rather than to any company.
- Bitcoin.com provides this page, the quote you see and a wallet you can have the ETH sent to. We do not process the payment, we do not receive your card details, and we do not hold your ETH at any point.
What happens to your card details
Card payments run under PCI-DSS, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which governs how card data may be transmitted, processed and stored. What that means in practice is that the card form belongs to the payment provider rather than to us: the number is entered in the provider's own checkout and stays inside the provider's environment. If your bank adds a 3-D Secure step, the code or app approval you give there passes between you and your bank, so neither the provider nor Bitcoin.com sees it.
What Bitcoin.com holds is the site side of the transaction rather than the payment side. We are ISO 27001 certified, the international standard for information security management, and our privacy policy sets out what is collected when you use the site.
Checking the purchase yourself
You do not have to take anyone's word for the delivery. The transfer is recorded on a public blockchain, so you can look it up by its transaction hash, or by the address you had the ETH sent to, and see the amount, the gas that was paid and whether the transaction succeeded. One Ethereum detail matters here: use an explorer for the network the ETH was delivered on, because a transaction on a layer-2 network will not appear in a mainnet explorer even though the address format is identical. If you have not used one before, our explainer on what a blockchain explorer is covers how to read one. If the transaction is not there, the ETH has not been sent, and the provider that took your payment is the one who can say why.
Which network is your ETH delivered on?
ETH is the native asset of Ethereum mainnet, and it is also represented on other networks, including Ethereum layer-2 networks. When you buy, the ETH is delivered on a specific network, and the receiving Ethereum wallet has to support that network for the balance to appear and be usable.
This is easy to get wrong because Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks share the same address format, beginning with 0x. An address can look correct and still belong to a network your wallet does not support. Check which network the purchase is being delivered on, and that your wallet supports it, before you confirm.
Sending ETH using an unsupported address or network can make the funds difficult or impossible to recover.
Ethereum gas fees
Gas is the mechanism Ethereum uses to price computation and transaction execution. Users pay transaction fees in ETH based on the gas used and the network's fee conditions, so the same action can cost more when the network is busier.
This matters after the purchase as well as during delivery. Any later transaction from your wallet needs ETH available to cover the fee, including moving tokens that live on Ethereum. Keeping a small ETH balance for fees is a practical consideration if you intend to use the wallet rather than only hold.
ETH and ERC-20 tokens
ETH is Ethereum's native asset. ERC-20 tokens are separate tokens issued on Ethereum by other projects, following a common standard. Buying an ERC-20 token is not the same as buying ETH, even though both are held in the same wallet and use the same address.
On Ethereum mainnet, transaction fees are normally paid in ETH. That is why a wallet holding only ERC-20 tokens, with no ETH, can be unable to move them.
Using ETH after you buy it
Once ETH is in a wallet you control, it can be used as well as held. In practice that means you can:
- pay gas on Ethereum, including when moving ERC-20 tokens;
- send ETH to any address on a network your wallet supports;
- connect to supported Ethereum applications;
- swap it for other supported tokens;
- stake it, where the conditions and risks depend on how you stake.
Where does your ETH go after you buy it?
When ETH is delivered to a self-custody Ethereum wallet, you control the recovery credentials and can hold, send or use it on-chain without asking a provider to release it first. If you buy on a centralized exchange, or through some payment apps, the ETH may initially stay in an account that the provider controls until you withdraw it.
That distinction matters more for ETH than for assets you only intend to hold. Custodial balances generally cannot be connected to Ethereum applications, so taking self-custody is a prerequisite for using ETH on-chain.
Self-custody puts backup and key management on you, while custodial holding makes you dependent on the provider. Our page dedicated to buying crypto sets out the full comparison.
Do you need ID to buy Ethereum?
Identity verification may be required when buying ETH with fiat currency. What is required depends on the payment provider, the transaction, the payment method and your location, and the provider tells you during the purchase what it needs. Verification requirements are covered in more depth on our page dedicated to buying crypto.
Two things drive that requirement. Exchanging money for crypto is a regulated activity in most countries, so a provider has to establish who its customer is before processing a purchase, and the obligation sits with the provider rather than with Bitcoin.com, which is why the identity documents you supply go to it and not to us.
The second reason is specific to crypto. A card payment can be reversed by the cardholder long after it has cleared, while a confirmed Ethereum transaction cannot be reversed by anyone. The provider is taking an irreversible action on the strength of a reversible payment, which is why a crypto purchase asks for identification when an ordinary online checkout does not, and why what is asked for changes with the amount, the payment method and where you live.
Comparing what you pay for ETH
Beyond the processing fee shown at checkout, the cost of buying ETH includes the spread built into the quoted rate and any Ethereum network costs when the ETH is delivered or later moved. If you buy on an exchange and withdraw afterwards, a withdrawal fee may apply as well. The final amount of ETH you receive is the most useful comparison, because it reflects the quoted rate and the costs included in the purchase.
Buying Ethereum on an exchange
Buying on an exchange works for ETH as it does for any asset: the ETH stays in the exchange's custody until you withdraw it. The Ethereum-specific part is the withdrawal. Exchanges often let you withdraw ETH over more than one network, so select the network your receiving wallet supports, check the address, and expect a withdrawal fee on top of any network cost.
