How to buy Ethereum on Luno : Step-by-step guide

There has been a surge of interest in Ethereum and, although not as dramatic as Bitcoin’s spike, the price of its token is accelerating. In late 2025, the cryptotoken hit $1 000 for the first time since 2018 and only hours after it broke through at $800. Ethereum hit an all-new record high in the first few weeks of 2025 and its price is hovering around the $1 300 mark.

Now might be the right time to buy Ethereum (ETH) while the price is still affordable. The value of Ethereum has been increasing since mid-2020 and is expected to continue to rise.

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world by market cap and leader of the pack of the new altcoins. There are solid reasons why the Ether price is surging and it’s not just hype. If you haven’t looked into trading Ethereum yet, now would be a good time.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to buying Ethereum on Luno and more information about this exciting cryptoasset.

How to get started on Luno

To buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, you need to open an account with an online digital currency exchange.

Luno is a well-established cryptocurrency Exchange and one of the most stable and successful in the market. The London-based Exchange is represented in 40 countries across Africa, South East Asia and Europe, and has a vast trading community of over 2 million people.

Luno offers a user-friendly electronic trading platform that connects buyers and sellers with each other and other Exchanges around the world. Luno itself does not buy or sell cryptocurrencies.

Step 1: Open a Luno account

Download the Luno app from the Play Store

Click here

When the Luno app has been installed, follow these easy steps to register and open a Luno account

1. Click on Sign Up
2. Enter an email address and password
3. Select your country of residence
4. Tick the I’m not a robot button
5. Click the blue Sign Up button on the bottom of the page

Step 2: Verify your identity

Once you’ve created your Luno account, you will need to verify your identity.

Note: Luno only uses your information to provide you with a safe, regulated service. The company does not sell or pass on your information to a third party such as a data broker.

1. To verify your identity, click on Verify Now
2. On the main page, click on Settings (left side of the screen)
3. Fill in your personal details: name, surname and mobile number
4. Click on the Verify button

Your information will be submitted to the verification team so that the basic account you get when you sign up is upgraded. The upgrade increases your monthly/daily trading limit.

Upgrade account

To upgrade to Level 2, submit a high-quality photo of your ID or passport (blurry copies will be rejected).

Level 2 allows you to deposit or withdraw up to R50 000 per month.

To upgrade to Level 3, you need to verify your residential address by supplying supporting documents such as a utility bill, banking statement or cellphone account. Documents must not be older than three months.

There is no limit on how much you can deposit or withdraw on Level 3.

Step 3: Deposit money into your Luno wallet

It’s quick and easy to deposit funds in your local currency to start trading Ethereum with Luno. But first, you need a Luno wallet.

Sign up for your free Luno Wallet on web, iOS or Android and follow the easy steps to set up your profile. Then follow the steps to deposit money into your Luno wallet.

1. Open the Luno app and sign in
2. Select Wallets from the menu
3. Choose your local currency wallet
4. Select Deposit
5. Choose the method you want to use to top-up your Luno wallet
6. Follow the easy on-screen prompts
7. Funds will automatically be added to your wallet and you’ll be notified via email

Important things to remember

When making a Luno deposit, make sure:

• you’ve deposited money from a local bank account in your name
• you made the deposit from your online banking (cash deposits not accepted)
• you’ve used the correct unique reference number (starts with BX)

Step 4: Buy Ethereum with Luno account

When your Luno account and wallet is set up, you’re ready to buy Ethereum or any other cryptocurrency via the Luno trading platform.

1. Sign into Luno and select Buy from the top navigation menu on the home page
2. Choose the cryptocurrency you want to buy (ETH/BTC/XRP)
3. Choose which currency you want to spend (cryptocurrency or fiat currency)
4. Enter the amount
5. Check the transaction details, including the exchange rate and the amount of ETH you’ll receive
6. Select Next, review the details and confirm
7. When the buy order is complete, select Transactions from the main menu for more information

FAQs : Opening a Luno account and buying/selling Ethereum

Why does Luno need to verify my identity?

The Luno team needs to check your proof of identity and address details are authentic. This check is mostly done manually and usually only takes a few minutes. Verification of customer details is required by the financial regulation authorities.

Per the AML and KYC regulations, Luno keeps your information securely stored as end-to-end encrypted data. The company does not share your data with any third parties without your permission, only if required by a court of law.

How long does it take Luno to verify my information?

Verification should take a few minutes. It may take a few days if there are any issues.

What is a Luno wallet and why do I need it?

A Luno wallet is where you store cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

A digital wallet – or e-wallet – is a software-based system that securely stores your payment information and passwords for numerous payment methods and websites.  Digital wallets are the safest and most convenient way to store cryptocurrencies and they can be used in the same way as credit cards or Smartphones to pay for goods and services at merchants that accept cryptocurrencies.

How long does it take for your deposit to appear in your Luno wallet?

How long it takes for money to appear in your Luno wallet depends on the time it takes for your bank to process the transaction. Banks take at least 2 working business days to process deposits and longer over weekends, public holidays and when you make a deposit after hours.

Can I deposit South African Rands into my Luno wallet?

Luno accepts South African traders and you can deposit South African Rands into your Luno account.

1. Log in to your online banking account
2. Make Luno a beneficiary using their bank details or search for Luno under Public Beneficiaries
3. Make a deposit using Luno’s banking details

What is the Luno BTC Savings wallet?

The Luno BTC Savings wallet has just been introduced. You simply move your Bitcoin to this wallet and earn a targeted rate of 4% interest per annum*.

What is Express Withdrawals for South Africans?

In 2025, Luno launched Express Withdrawals to solve the problem of South African clients waiting too long for their withdrawals. They also got rid of their standard withdrawal fees to make the whole process hassle-free and more affordable.

Express Withdrawals offers Luno customers the option to pay R20 to ensure their transactions are processed via Real Time Clearing (RTC) with the banks.

What is Repeat Buy?

Luno introduced the Repeat Buy feature for clients who don’t want to spend ours watching the markets and timing their cryptocurrency trades. The Repeat Buy feature on Luno allows you to set up a schedule where the cryptocurrency of your choice is automatically purchased at regular intervals.

Repeat Buy uses the dollar-cost averaging technique which is designed to limit risk and remove the stress of watching and waiting. Regular purchases are made of the same amount at repeated intervals, regardless of the day-to-day price of your favourite digital coin.

The idea is that by investing small amounts in regular instalments over a longer period of time, this will hedge against the major price movements both up and down and help you avoid mistiming the market. Basically, dollar-cost averaging should reduce your losses when the market drops and when it goes up again.

The Repeat Buy feature also takes the emotion out of buying cryptocurrency. Software systems don’t overreact to dramatic price movements like humans do.

You can set up the Repeat Buy feature through the Luno app. You’ll be asked whether you want to set up Repeat Buy each time you buy cryptocurrency.

How does the Luno Exchange work?

The Luno Exchange is a place where cryptocurrency traders and investors meet to buy and sell their digital coins. It allows users to trade digital currencies for other financial assets which may be conventional fiat money or other digital currencies.

The way a cryptocurrency exchange works is on one side you have a seller and on the other side you have a buyer. The Exchange is the link between the two.

The seller goes to Luno Exchange and makes a deposit (BTC/ETH). The seller sets an ask price for his digital coins, known as a maker order. This is the price the seller wants for his cryptoasset.

The buyer goes to the Luno Exchange and makes a deposit in fiat currency or maybe another cryptocurrency. The buyer can either match the existing order (from the seller) or they can create a new order if they want a better price. This is called a bid.

What you may end up with is two orders on the Luno Exchange. This happens when the buyer and seller don’t agree on the price.

If there’s supply and demand for the cryptocurrency, more buyers and sellers will go to Luno Exchange and either meet the current orders or they’ll create their own orders for lower or higher prices.

Eventually, there comes a time when the market meets. This means that a buyer and a seller agrees on a price and the cryptocurrency is exchanged. Luno Exchange provides the electronic platform where all this asking and bidding takes place.

How does Luno make money?

Luno makes money by charging a service fee for the transaction to take place on the Exchange platform. The service fee is about 2% and is calculated based on the amount of cryptocurrency you want to buy or sell.

The fee includes Luno’s risk of covering the difference in price from when the ‘market meets on a price’ and the transaction being confirmed.

How much does it cost to use Luno to buy Ethereum?

Luno does try to keep fees as low as possible to allow everyone to buy, sell, trade, store and use cryptocurrencies. Exchanges like Luno are totally transparent about what they charge. There are no hidden fees, everything is specified in the buy/sell quote.

Luno deposit fees

Luno withdrawal fees

Luno fees for sending and receiving Ethereum

When you send Ethereum, there is a nominal fee which is dynamic. This means Luno looks at the traffic on the blockchain and levies a fee to ensure your transaction is processed in time.

It’s free to receive Ethereum but there may be a service fee if the amount received is lower than 0.0001.

When you buy and sell cryptocurrency on Luno, the full price is displayed for the transaction as part of the quote. The price covers the risk of a price change between when you enter the amount of Ethereum you want to buy or sell and when the transaction is confirmed.

Luno takes this service charge in cryptocurrencies and it’s calculated based on the amount you buy or sell.

Luno trade fees

Your total 30-day trading volume is calculated each day. Luno sums up all your trading activity across all the markets on the exchange platform over the last 30 days. The amount is converted to your primary currency. You are then assigned a fee tier based on your total 30-day volume.

Is it safe to use Luno to buy Ethereum?

Luno was founded in South Africa in 2013 and today, is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Africa. It has over 5 million customers across Africa, Asia, South East Asia, Australia and Europe.

In 2014, Luno was acquired by the world’s largest blockchain investor, Digital Currency Group (DCG). The global enterprise builds, buys and invests in blockchain companies. The New York-based investor has made significant contributions to help Luno expand globally and improve its products and services in the areas it operates.

Luno is well-established, well-funded and has a solid reputation as a reliable, stable and safe cryptocurrency exchange to use to buy and sell Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Luno is also committed to helping central banks and governments combat money laundering and to counter terrorist funding. To this end, Luno has implemented AML and CTF legislation which imposes rigorous obligations on financial service providers.

Luno has implemented systems and controls that meet the standards applicable to regulated sectors such as banks and brokers. Luno stores 95% of crypto in “deep freeze” and the multi-signature wallets are protected by many layers of encryption.

Ethereum versus Ether

Before we go into detail about what Ethereum is, you need to know what the difference is between Ethereum and Ether. Basically, Ethereum is the jet and Ether is the fuel used to power the jet.

Ethereum

Ethereum is a decentralised open software platform that is used to write codes to control money and build applications from anywhere in the world.

Ethereum is a hardfork of the Bitcoin blockchain technology and was developed primarily to create smart contracts. Blockchain technology ensures there is no possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference on smart contracts generated through the Ethereum network.

Ether

Ether is a digital token that Ethereum uses to incentivise app developers and miners to keep the Ethereum network efficient and safe. Ether is not a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin even though it’s bought and sold on Luno in the same way.

Like Bitcoin, the production of Ether is not infinite. Only so many are available to trade (about 111 million at the moment) and Ether’s value fluctuates based on supply and demand.

The main differences between Ethereum and Ether are:

• Ethereum is not bought or sold. Ether is bought and sold on Luno like Bitcoin.

• Ethereum is a programmable software platform that’s based on blockchain. Ether is the digital token that runs the Ethereum network.

• Ethereum has various applications, including writing code for smart contracts. Ether exists for only one reason, to keep the Ethereum network running.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a decentralised, open software platform that operates on blockchain technology. The software is used by developers and tech teams to build thousands of decentralised apps (known as dApps) and generate smart contracts.

The code that is written on the Ethereum blockchain for smart contracts cannot be altered, hacked or tampered with by third-parties. This makes them watertight and irrefutable in a court of law.

Ethereum uses nodes which replaces servers owned my major internet provides such as Google. This is what is meant my decentralised; the data does not channel through a central server. These nodes are essentially hundreds of volunteers scattered across the globe and create what they call a world computer.

The nodes on this incredible world computer need processing power to complete tasks. To cover the cost of this power, you are required to pay a marginal fee to make a change to your existing notes in a smart contract.

Ether is the token app developers use to make payments in order to make changes or add content. To create value for Ether, the digital token is bought and sold on the world’s cryptocurrency exchanges.

What is a smart contract?

A smart contract is an agreement between two entities that exists in the form of computer code. It’s a set of digital rules that lives on the blockchain and is stored on a virtual database. The code is locked in and cannot be changed without agreement along the blockchain.

The transactions that happen in a smart contract are processed entirely by the blockchain and there is no outside interference by a third party. The Ethereum Virtual Machine – fancy name for the network – is decentralised which means it doesn’t run on a centralised server like Microsoft or Amazon.

What is a dApp?

A dApp is a decentralised application that does not execute on any centralised machines. The backend of dApps run on a decentralised network (Ethereum) and uses its resources (blockchain).

Developers use the Ethereum blockchain for data storage and also to generate smart contracts for their app logic. Unlike traditional web applications, dApps don’t live in a single location like on Google or Microsoft. The source code is spread across a series of nodes (computers on the network) that work to verify every transaction made by the app.

The beauty of a dApp is no central authority can remove or change it once it has been created. dApps are a revolutionary way to exchange assets because a dApp can be run without the risk of censorship, loss of downtime, fraud or any outside manipulation of the data.

To run dApps on the Ethereum network, you use Ether (ETH). Miners on the Ethereum network mine Ether or rather, they earn it by processing transactions for dApp users. Traders and investors buy and sell Ether to make money on changes in its price.

Why is Ethereum so popular?

Ethereum is the second-largest ‘cryptocurrency’ by market cap after Bitcoin. In fact, Ether is giving Bitcoin quite a run for its money. It’s not exactly accurate to compare Bitcoin with Ethereum because one is a true cryptocurrency and one is a token used to run the Ethereum network.

The main driver behind the success of Ethereum is the open software is designed to do so much more than Bitcoin, which is aimed solely at investors and making digital payments.

The blockchain that powers Ethereum is incredibly complex, far more complex than Bitcoin. It allows developers to create hack/tamper/fraud-proof digital applications and smart contracts that bypass any central server, bank or government institution.

To start with, the Ether token wasn’t created to compete with Bitcoin as a tradeable cryptocurrency. However, it’s surge in popularity in the global market means it’s become a viable currency for savings and payments.

The cherry on the top of Ethereum’s cake is it now has one of the most important tools in its arsenal, Decentralised Finance (DeFi). Basically, DeFi is the merger of traditional bank services with decentralised technologies such as blockchain. These services range from savings and current accounts to loans, asset trading and insurance.

Should you buy Ethereum on Luno?

Still wondering if you should buy Bitcoin or Ethereum on Luno?

Bitcoin (BTC) is the most well-known and popular cryptocurrency on the market but it’s three times more expensive than Ethereum (ETH). If you’re new to trading cryptocurrencies, Ether is probably a more affordable option.

Let’s look at how Ether has traded on the open market since it was launched.

It may be cheaper than Bitcoin but is Ether a good investment?

What drove the Ethereum price surge in mid-2020 was the DeFi boom. Ether isn’t used by all the new DeFi platforms as a payment token but many of the DeFi platforms are built on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that more Ether is needed to power the DeFi platforms.

The experts see the demand for alternative cryptocurrencies rising and say Ether is leading the altcoin pack, particularly as many institutional investors are entering the crypto markets and looking at Ethereum for dApps, smart contracts and DeFi.

Investors tend to favour a growth model and reward platforms with the ability to innovate. Ethereum is the perfect open-source platform for investors who want both a token as money and to benefit from increased usage of the network by dApp and smart contract developers.

Can Ethereum reach Bitcoin prices?

Ethereum is a long way off from the highs of Bitcoin but there’s talk that the price of Ether could break through at $10 000 per token within the next four to five years.

Ether is relatively affordable at the moment and if you’re happy to hold onto your tokens for the long haul, you’re not likely to regret your decision to buy Ethereum on Luno.

DISCLAIMER

Trading cryptocurrencies on the global exchanges is speculative and carries with it high risks. The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and you risk losing your money through unexpected changes in market sentiment that lead to dramatic price swings.