How to sell Ethereum: Guide for Beginners

Once you’ve accumulated some Ether, either through buying the tokens or mining them, there will probably come a time when you’ll decide to sell. Indeed, as of now, Ether can only be used to pay for stuff on the Ethereum network, as there is a very limited number of businesses that accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment and most of them accept exclusively Bitcoin.

So, if you don’t intend on being an active user of Ethereum, chances are you have purchased Ether as an investment with an intention to offload it at some point in the near future. This handy guide will cover the various ways of selling Ether and touch upon some trading strategies.

Exchanges to sell Ether

The process of selling Ether on an exchange works similarly to buying it. First of all, you need to choose an exchange that operates within your jurisdiction and trades Ether and set up an account with it. In order to be able to sell, you will be required to connect your existing bank account and provide some additional information, e.g., your date of birth, country of residence and phone number.

Once you’re all set up, you will need to choose whether to sell your Ether for fiat currency or trade it for a different cryptocurrency.

Most major exchanges offer wallet services. Simply navigate the website in search of a ‘sell,’ ‘deposit’ or ‘deposit into exchange’ button. Here you will find your new wallet’s address. Simply send the required amount of Ether from where it’s kept in the new wallet, the transfer will happen almost instantaneously.

From there, you can set how much Ether you’d like to sell and choose what currency you’d like to sell it for. On most exchanges, this is done through either placing an order and waiting for someone to accept it or, alternatively, you can look for an already placed order to fill. The exchange rate is normally calculated automatically based on the current market rate, market volatility, the size of the transaction and, in some cases, the length of time using a particular exchange.

Once the trade is complete, the funds, no matter fiat or crypto, will appear in your account. If you opted to sell your Ether for any of the traditional currencies, you will then have an option to withdraw the funds into your bank account. This is done via bank wire transfer, so it might take up to three to four days for the money to appear in your bank account.

Withdrawing fiat currency will also incur fees. Those differ quite significantly depending on the particular trading platform, so you might want to factor that in when choosing the right exchange. The fees breakdown can be found in ‘about’ of ‘frequently asked questions’ sections of exchanges’ websites. Alternatively, you can use a table of exchanges down below.

Exchange

Cryptmixer

ETH/BTC

The standard fee for this service is 0.05% No KYC(verification) required.

Kraken

ETH/USD, ETH/EUR, ETH/CAD, ETH/GBP, ETH/JPY

ETH/BTC, ETH/ETC, ETH/EOS, ETH/GNO

EUR SEPA — €0.09

USD (Domestic) — $5

USD SWIFT — $60

EUR SWIFT — €60

JPY (Domestic) — ¥300

CAD (Domestic) — $10 CAD

Gemini

ETH/USD

ETH/BTC

Free (Maximum 30 free withdrawals a month)

Bitfinex

ETH/USD

ETH/BTC

Bank wire — 0.1% (min 20 USD/EUR)

Express bank wire — 1% (min 20 USD/EUR)

Bittrex

No ETH/fiat pairings

ETH/BTC, ETH/USDT

Free

Cex.io

ETH/USD, ETH/EUR, ETH/GBP

ETH/BTC

VISA — $3.80/€3.50/£2.90

MasterCard — 1.2% + $3.80/€3.50/£2.90

Bank transfer — $50/€25/£30

SEPA — €10

Peer-to-peer trading

Alternatively, if you’d prefer to skip the hassle of connecting your bank account and going through a lengthy process of identity verification, there’s an option to sell your Ether directly through a Local ethereum peer-to-peer exchange. Unlike all other exchanges, this one is completely decentralized. The escrow services and arbitrage are achieved through the implementation of Ethereum smart contracts.

Localethereum is essentially a marketplace where users can place and respond to offers. When selling on the platform, you will typically be charged a 0.25 percent fee. It also has a messaging service, which allows users to set up an eye-to-eye meeting to exchange Ether for hard cash. Alternatively, you can use services such as MeetUp where you can find your local Ethereum or general cryptocurrency-related meet-up, where you can sell your Ether is a safe environment.

It is important to remember, though, that if you opt for a peer-to-peer trading option, you will be dealing with individuals, not corporations, which means the chances of your deal going wrong are significantly higher. Remember to take this into account and take precautionary measures, especially when meeting with strangers off the Internet.

Always double check the public addresses, the amount you’re sending as well as the current exchange rate.

When arranging a face-to-face meeting, make sure to meet in a public place, never invite alleged traders to your house and, of course, never go to theirs. Some people prefer to bring a friend to the deal, just to be on the safe side, but it would wise to let the trader know about it. Also, you will need active Internet access to confirm the transaction. Finally, before confirming a transaction, make sure the person you’re trading with has the funds available and is all but ready to confirm the transaction on their part. Sometimes people press the ‘send’ button at the same time.

Ether Trading Strategies

Holding

Buy-and-hold trading is perhaps the most common trading strategy amongst the general investing population, as it is by far the easiest and least involved approach. It is also sometimes referred to as a long-term strategy, as it entails buying stocks and holding on to them for a long period of time before offloading them.

Buy-and-hold investors usually tend to choose a strong, reputable company, buy their stock and hold onto it regardless of market conditions. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, the two indisputable market leaders are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Even though their value still fluctuates quite a lot, it is not expected to plummet anytime soon. A huge amount of people who bought BTC or ETH early are now reaping the rewards, with many long-term investors still joining their ranks.

Probably the most important benefit of this strategy is that it saves time and energy. Essentially, all you need to do is purchase Ether tokens and store them in a safe place. As a buy-and-hold trader, you won’t need to regularly check up on news and information, price histories and overall market performance. Moreover, opting for this strategy means low maintenance of your portfolio, low anxiety as well as lower transaction fees, as you will be performing a significantly smaller amount of transactions than active traders.

Even though buy-and-hold is a safer trading strategy than others, it is not without risk, especially when dealing with cryptocurrencies. Long-term traders can’t benefit from shorter-term price swings; also it might be difficult for some people to not be overactive in the markets. Moreover, some events might have a huge impact on Ether price, for instance, the infamous DAO hack and the subsequent Ethereum hard fork led to Ether price plummeting. But, Ether has not only recovered since but gained hundreds of dollars in price and those who held onto their assets after the drop are now enjoying the massive profits.

One crucial aspect of this strategy is the eventual sale. Buy-and-hold traders have an option of either exiting the position fully by selling every single token in their possession or selling them in chunks when the price hits another all-time high. Of course, if Ethereum will file for bankruptcy or if the project will be abruptly shut down, if a member of the Ethereum team will indicate at some major problems or theft, and if the project will be going through a major adjustment of strategy — it might be time to sell prematurely to avoid losses.

Active trading

Active trading is a strategy that entails a deeper immersion into the market and requires a lot more time, knowledge and experience than buy-and-hold. In the world of traditional securities trading, there are several different styles of active trading. However, we are dealing with cryptocurrencies, a completely new and largely unpredictable market, so applying traditional trading strategies might not work.

If you’re opting for active trading, you are essentially speculating on Ether price, which means you will need to monitor the market and Ether’s price fluctuation daily, if not hourly. Related news articles, announcements and opinions are also an essential read for an active trader, as those can influence the price quite a lot.

There’s a golden rule to active trading — buy low, sell high. Basically, all you need to do is wait for the moment when Ether price is relatively low, buy some tokens and sell them when the price goes up. You can follow the fluctuation of the price manually, simply by looking at the exchange rate. Alternatively, you can use trading tools such as TradingView, which enable you to set up alerts both for when the price hits a low and when it spikes to a certain value at which you’d like to sell. In most of such trading tools alerts are only available in paid-for packages, but if you’re an active trader, it will be worth it.

A potential problem that active traders might face is locking in profits. Many exchanges don’t allow their users to store money in their local fiat currency or make it very difficult to do so. This means that every time you make a successful sale, you will need to withdraw the money to your bank account, which can take up to several days and will incur fees. Then, to buy again, you will need to send money to the exchange.

One possible solution to this problem is Tether, a cryptocurrency that is not used to invest or trade in. Instead, it is used as a mean of exchange, as it is pegged to the US Dollar, which means that one Tether will always be worth around $1. You can convert your Ether into Tether to lock in profits or stop the losses and trade it back to Ether once you’re ready to buy again.

Check out the video below for a more detailed secretion of possible trading strategies:

How to sell Ethereum mined from pool

When you join a mining pool, you provide the pool with an address to which your mining rewards will be sent. Many exchanges don’t recommend sending mining rewards directly to an exchange-based wallet, as it’s public address can change from time to time.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t sell Ether received as a reward for mining, it only means you need to take an extra step. One possible solution will be setting up a local wallet for receiving mining rewards and then simply transferring your tokens from their to your exchange’s wallet.