Ethereum: How to sell them?

By Kapil Gauhar

After accumulating ether, either through the mining or buying tokens, certainly time will arrive when one will think of selling them. Actually, as of now, they can be only be used to pay for ethereum stuff, as there are only a limited number of businesses which accepts cryptocurrencies as the payment and most of them accepts Bitcoin exclusively.

So, if one has purchased Ether as an investment of intention to offload it at some point in the near future.  The information shared below will cover how to trade with ether or where to sell them.

Ether Exchanges:

The criteria for selling Ether on the exchange is similar to the way of buying it. Firstly one needs to find an exchange that operates within the jurisdiction and trades Ether and set up an account with it and link the existing bank account and provide some additional information.

Once all the process is done, one can choose whether to buy or sell ether for fiat currency or different cryptocurrency.

With the help of wallet services provided by exchanges, the process of selling or buying the Ether is almost instantaneous. Here, just one had to simply send the required amount of Ether from where it’s kept to the new wallet. Also, can choose for what fiat currency or different cryptocurrency will it like to exchange ether.

Once the trading process is complete, the funds, no matter crypto or fiat will appear in the account linked in the exchange. If the ether is being traded for the traditional currency, then it may take a few days for the money to appear in a bank account.

Withdrawing fiat currency will also incur fees which differ according to the trading platform. The below table can help with fees breakdown of different exchanges.

Exchange	Ethereum Trading Pairs	Withdrawal Fees
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
Coinbase	ETH/USD, ETH/EUR ETH/BTC	Variable depending on location, payment method and other circumstances. Range from €0.15 for SEPA transfers to 3.99% for PayPal withdrawals.
Bitfinex	ETH/USD ETH/BTC	Bank wire – 0.1% (min 20 USD/EUR) Express bank wire – 1% (min 20 USD/EUR)
Gemini	ETH/USD ETH/BTC	Free (Maximum 30 free withdrawals a month)
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
Bittrex	No ETH/fiat pairings ETH/BTC, ETH/USDT	Free

 Peer-to-peer(P2P) Trading:

If one wants to skip the hassle of connecting accounts and going through the KYC process can opt for the P2P trading through Localethereum. This platform is completely decentralised. The escrow services and arbitrage are achieved through the implementation of the smart contracts. It is a marketplace where users can respond and make offers. On this platform, one will be typically charged a 0.25 percent fee. Localethereum provides a messaging service, which helps users to set-up a face-to-face meeting to exchange ether for hard cash. There are many alternate platforms such as Meetup, where one can sell Ether. The point to remember in P2P trading is that here the trading will take place between individuals not with the corporations, which increases the risk for the deal going wrong. Always perform a double check for the amount to be sent and the current exchange rate.

Trading Strategies for Ether:

Holding:

Perhaps this strategy of trade is being followed by the general investing population, as it is the easiest approach for trading. This holding strategy is sometimes referred to as a long-term strategy, as it involves buying and holding them for a long time before selling them. The investors of this strategy usually choose a strong, reputable company to buy stocks and hold them regardless of market conditions. For cryptocurrencies, there are mainly two reliable market leaders which are Bitcoin ad Ethereum. The main advantage of this strategy is that it saves time and energy. As a holding trader one will not have to keep track records for the price histories and market performance on a regular basis. This strategy involves low transaction fees as here the trader will be trading in smaller amounts in comparison to active traders. Even though the holding strategy is considered to be the safest strategy than others, but there is also risk involved when it comes to cryptocurrency trading. Further, events like DAO hacks have an adverse impact on Ether price. This strategy provides liberty to investors either to sell their entire stocks at once or in chunks when the price hits the all-time high.

Active Trading:

This strategy entails a deeper immersion in the market and requires more time and experience in comparison to the holding strategy. As we are trading in a completely new and unpredictable market, applying traditional security strategies might not work here. If one is opting for the active trading, then he has to monitor the market and the ether’s price fluctuations daily. The active trading has a golden rule which says “Buy low, sell high”. This monitoring of the market price fluctuations can be done with the help of tools such as Tradingveiw, which allows to set up alerts for the prices when it hits low or when goes up. Most of the tools are paid packages, but if one is an active trader then these tools are worth it.The problems that are being faced by the active traders is that of locking the profits. Many exchanges don’t allow to store money in their fiat currency, which means that after every successful transaction they need to withdraw the amount to their bank account which may take several days and will incur some fees. The possible solution to this issue is that the active traders can convert their Ether into Tether which is used as a mean of exchange to lock in profits or stop losses and trade it back to Ether.   

Selling Ethereum Mined from Pool:   

After joining the pool, the users are provided with an address to which their mining rewards are sent. Many exchanges don’t prefer to send the rewards directly to an exchange-based wallet, as it’s a public address and can change from time to time. But this doesn’t mean that one cant sell ether received as a reward, rather it requires one more extra step which includes setting up a local wallet for receiving mining rewards and then simply transferring tokens earned to your exchange’s wallet.