Buy Ethereum (ETH) in Australia

You can buy Ethereum in Australia on Independent Reserve. It only takes five minutes to create your account. Buy ETH with Australian dollars, starting with as little as A$10.

After you buy Ethereum from Independent Reserve you can simply leave it on the exchange to be stored safely and securely. Or, if you prefer to store ETH yourself, you can transfer it easily into your preferred wallet.

Yes. After you buy Ethereum on Independent Reserve, we keep it safe for you. At Independent Reserve we take security seriously. We have the highest protection measures in place to ensure our customer’s cryptocurrency is secured. We provide two-factor authentication (2FA), ISO 27001 certification, and top-tier underground vaults. Learn more about our security measures.

The Ethereum blockchain has three levels of operation: the hardware layer, the software layer, and the application layer. The hardware layer of Ethereum runs on a global network of computers called "nodes." Nodes do the work required to process transactions and ensure the blockchain's ledger is updated. They are responsible for maintaining a synchronised record of information stored on Ethereum's shared database.

The software layer of Ethereum is controlled by smart contracts, which are written in Solidity. Solidity is Ethereum’s custom programming language, and it is “Turing complete”, which means it can run any computation that a computer can theoretically do. The software and hardware layers of Ethereum combined creates a decentralised supercomputer, called the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Developers can write and deploy smart contracts using the EVM, and launch their own decentralised applications (dApps) on top of Ethereum, without needing to create their own blockchain.

DApps are hosted on the Ethereum application layer. They exist on the blockchain and run over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, meaning they do not need a third-party to work. Ethereum provides a decentralised system that enables a more trusted and shared infrastructure that is free from censorship and fraud. It requires no oversight from a central authority and cannot be shut down.

To learn more, read our blog post on how Ethereum works.

Smart contracts are digital contracts that automatically execute a set of actions based on the terms written in an agreement. They are small programs stored on a blockchain, that run exactly as programmed when fixed conditions are met.

Smart contracts make life easier by cutting out the middleman. They save us time and money and make business transactions more efficient. Smart contracts are a powerful tool that allow us to manage and process data in a “smarter” way without needing to rely on a third-party to validate information.

Data stored on the blockchain is immutable, meaning it cannot be altered. All transactions recorded to the public ledger are openly accessible by anyone. This transparency of information precludes corruption and leads to a more trusted system that instils faith in a fairer way of doing things. For example, smart contracts could be used to remove the possibility of voting fraud in an election, by managing votes and ensuring that results are accurately counted.

Decentralised applications (DApps) are blockchain-based “apps” that run on a peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network called “nodes”. DApps differ from traditional apps because they can operate without human intervention and do not rely on a centralised system. Ethereum delivers a secure blockchain for storing data with native support for smart contracts that let dApps function autonomously. This is why the Ethereum platform is the first choice for many developers and ventures who are embracing blockchain technology.

Ethereum is home to the largest number of decentralised applications that exist today. Thousands of dApps launched Ethereum’s ecosystem, innovating businesses across sectors including decentralised finance (DeFi), currency exchanges, identity, gaming, real estate and health. Some famous examples of Ethereum-based dApps are OpenSea (NFT marketplace); and Uniswap (decentralised exchange (DEX)).

The native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network is Ether. “Ethereum” and “Ether” are often used interchangeably to refer to the cryptocurrency with the ticker symbol ETH. Technically speaking: Ether (ETH) is a digital asset, and Ethereum is a blockchain network.

The lifeblood of Ethereum is ETH. It is like the “digital petrol” that fuels the entire network. ETH is a transactional token used to facilitate operations within Ethereum’s ecosystem. If a user sends a payment or interacts with an application on Ethereum, they have to pay a small “gas” fee to the network, which is paid in ETH.

Gas is the vital fuel that runs the Ethereum network. Gas fees are transaction fees paid to miners (“validators”). When a user sends a payment or interacts with an application on the Ethereum blockchain, they are required to pay gas. Gas costs compensate miners for the energy it takes to process and validate a transaction. The purpose of gas fees is to incentivise miners to perform the work necessary to maintain the security of the network.

Gas is a unit that measures the amount of computational effort needed to execute certain operations on the network. Gas fees are denoted in Gwei, a smaller denomination of Ether (ETH), like cents to the dollar. The user often sets the amount of gas paid. "Gas limit" refers to the maximum amount a user is willing to spend on a transaction. The more work a transaction takes to perform, the more gas it will need. Miners prioritise transaction requests depending on the set gas price, i.e. the higher the gas fee, the faster a transaction will be processed.

"Serenity” is also referred to as Ethereum 2.0 and is a protocol upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. This important update aims to enhance Ethereum’s scalability, security and sustainability. The new features will address bottlenecks currently causing congestion issues and improve the network’s overall functionality. “Sharding” will be introduced to boost scalability, reduce latency and handle a higher transaction volume. Through staking, the “Beacon Chain” will introduce ETH rewards to validators for processing transactions and adding new blocks, called ‘forging’, and maintaining network security. When Ethereum’s current Mainet combines with the Beacon Chain in the upcoming “The Merge”, the network will move from being a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism blockchain. PoS systems are more energy efficient and require less power to operate.

Read more about Ethereum 2.0.

You can read more about Ethereum from our blog. For other resources, check out the official Ethereum website and the Ethereum whitepaper.