Ethereum Network

To connect to the network you need to have Metamask installed on your browser

Ethereum Mainnet

When you are ready to deploy your Smart Contract to the main Ethereum Network you will need some amount of ether to cover the deployment and gas fee.

There are two ways to obtain ether:

If you have some amount of other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin you can exchange them for Ether or, Buy some Ether directly with a credit, debit card or cash.

There are thousands of exchanges and different ways to buy and exchange cryptocurrencies but for simplicity you can choose an exchange directly on Metamask, this allows you to get Ether in an easy and secure way.

Another good place to find Ether at good prices is localcryptos.com (formerly https://localethereum.com/). LocalCryptos is a peer to peer marketplace for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Ethere.

Buy Ether

Learn how to buy Ether

Ethereum Testnets

When you are working on a project you might want to test everything before launching your smart contracts. In this case you can publish or deploy your contract to a test network which works exactly in the same way as the main a Ethereum network, but without the need to spend real money.

How to get free Ether for test networks?

The test networks use free test Ether.

You can find faucets in the test network of your preference, you can get some amount of Ether, but don't get too excited, those tokens have no value and cannot be sold for money. The only purpose of this is to test your project.

To get test Ether click on the faucet of the network you want to use and follow the instruction

Ethereum Official Website

Go to ethereum.org