This involves finding an online cryptocurrency exchange (such as Poloniex or Shapeshift.io), creating an account, crediting it with the cryptocurrency of your choice, and exchanging for
Ethereum at the given rate.
At press time, the hash
rate for the network was 544 GH / s, or about 13 % of the
ethereum network's hashing power, an arguably impressive figure
given that the blockchain has only been around for a matter of days.