Other than staking what can I do with my ETH?

I’m just getting back into crypto after a long hiatus (got out just before the 2017 run ;-;)

I’m now getting back in because I am receiving my inheritance from my fathers unfortunate passing last year and I am starting to explore the best ways to invest. I knew I wanted to get back into crypto and BTC and ETH seemed to be the best ones to start with. I currently have about $1k in BTC and just under 1 ETH since after research I felt it had more potential.

Now to the actual question what can I actually do with my ETH? I saw lots of recommendations against just throwing it in a cold wallet. The most suggested was staking and I plan to either stake on Kraken or Rocketpool when available (if I can with the amount I have). I also plan to continuously invest a bit into ETH over the next few months when I receive paychecks so should I wait until I have more ETH to stake or can I continuously add to the amount I am staking?

I don’t plan on selling for a few years so that’s why staking seems optimal but I have also heard there are other things I can do with my ETH but haven’t found concrete details. If anyone could elaborate for a bit of a newb I would appreciate it!