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Cape Crypto is thrilled to announce that you are now able to buy Ethereum directly on our platform. Many of our clients have been asking for this, and we’re delighted to have completed the work so that you can now build an Ethereum portfolio alongside your Bitcoin investment. 


This is the logical next step in our grand journey to bring crypto to the masses in the fastest, easiest way possible. 


Chances are, if you’re interested in the cryptocurrency space, you’ve heard of Ethereum. But perhaps you’re not exactly sure what it is.

Fear not, we’ve put a short introduction together to help you understand what you’re buying and why it’s such a great investment for your crypto portfolio. 

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. 

You could think of it as a massive, decentralised computer that has the ability to run apps (known as dapps). Dapps are simply software programs that are built to run on the Ethereum blockchain, just like how the apps that you have on your phone are built to run on your phone. Anyone can build a dapp, and have it added to the Ethereum blockchain enabling anyone in the world to interact with it.

Ether is the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain. 

When you buy “Ethereum” on an exchange, you are actually buying “Ether” – Ethereum is the name of the blockchain itself (and not its cryptocurrency) – but due to convenience and ease of explanation, the two definitions have largely become interchangeable. When you buy on Cape Crypto – we simply refer to it as Ethereum. 

Ether is the “fuel” used to run the commands of the dapps on the Ethereum platform – every command that is run on the blockchain needs a certain amount of fuel (Ether) in order to be completed.

You might think of Ether in a similar way to petrol or diesel. If you needed to run your generator for two hours during load shedding you would need maybe 2L of diesel. In the same way if you wanted to interact with a certain dapp on the Ethereum blockchain (the diesel generator), you would need to purchase that requisite amount of Ether (diesel) beforehand to be able to use it. Ether is the fuel used to run dapps.

Now of course just like fuel has a market price that goes up and down, so does Ether. This price is what leads people to buy and hold, speculating that the price will increase over time as we have seen thus far:

It was initially released on 30th July 2015 at the equivalent price of R40 per Ether. The price has since ranged between R20 000 and R40 000 per Ether over the last year, although it did reach a high of R55 000 in April. Unbelievable stuff.

(There are a few more concepts to Ethereum that we will talk about in upcoming articles such as Gas Price and Gas Limits)

After Bitcoin, Ether is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and Ethereum is the most actively used blockchain around the world (at the time of writing).

Ether and Bitcoin share many similarities: 

  • Each is a digital currency traded via online exchanges and stored in various types of cryptocurrency wallets. 
  • Both are decentralized tokens, meaning that they are not issued or regulated by a central bank or any other authority. 
  • Both make use of the distributed ledger technology known as blockchain

Clearly what sets it apart is how flexible and effective it is for creating utility tokens. For instance DEFI (decentralised finance) dapps have taken the world by storm and unleashed a whole new paradigm to finance and trustless lending. The explosive growth of NFTs is also all driven and built on Ethereum.  

The future success of crypto and blockchains is heavily reliant on Ethereum and it will surely be a worthwhile addition to your growing crypto portfolio.

Sign up with Cape Crypto today and get a piece of the action. Prices are good and the upside over time is sky high!

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