Ethereum Classic (ETC)

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What is Ethereum Classic (ETC) and how was it created?

Ethereum Classic is an open source project. Few people are aware that this is the original version of Ethereum - why has this network been split into two separate camps? Well, the reason for this decision was a hacking attack on a decentralized autonomous organization called The DAO. A user found a vulnerability in its code that allowed him to steal 3.6 million Ethers (a native cryptocurrency belonging to Ethereum). At that time, losses were around $ 70 million at the exchange rate - so it was not a small amount of money.

Of course, the important thing in all this is that the error itself did not come from Ethereum, but from an application built on this network, because The DAO code had many flaws. The only way out of this difficult situation was to carry out a hard fork - a split on the Ethereum blockchain. As a result, the network was divided into a newer version, called Ethereum (ETH) and an older version - Ethereum Classic (ETC), and the hacked funds were withdrawn to the accounts of the original owners.

Who is at the head of the Ethereum Classic camp?

Although the code in Ethereum has been updated after a long debate to recover stolen Ethers, not everyone liked this change. Some community members have stated that they will not launch the new version of the software because it contradicts the idea of blockchain, which should, in principle, remain unchanged. These people so far support the older version of Ethereum before the hard fork, but it is called Ethereum Classic, although it was originally assumed that this version would not survive.

It can be said that the ETC camp was sticking to the basic principle that code is sacred. Ethereum and Ethereum Classic share the same story up to 1,920,000 block, and then diverge in two different directions. Due to differences of opinion, ETC is no longer affiliated with the Ethereum Foundation. This project brought together its own development team to take a completely different path.

Initially, the Ethereum Classic team was led by ETCDEV, which included: Igor Artamonov, Yury Gagarin, Richard Schumann and Donald McIntyre. Currently, ETC Labs watches over the development of ETC.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ethereum (ETH) - basic differences

The Ethereum Classic project differs from Ethereum in several respects. While Ethereum aims to move from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS), the older version, Ethereum Classic, sticks to the original concept.

Ethereum Classic - controversy

This project has already been attacked several times by 51% - what exactly is it? Well, it is taking control of more than half of the hashing power of a given cryptocurrency. In such a situation, a group or person gaining such an advantage over the rest of the community may lead to the reversal of completed transactions and thus a double issue of coins.

Ethereum Classic had its first such attack in 2019, and another one in 2020 - what's more, ETC was affected by them 3 times in one month! These situations had drastic consequences for the project itself. For example, the popular cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has announced that it is considering removing ETC from its offering due to such a serious network insecurity. The Coinbase platform has also taken appropriate steps, withholding deposits and withdrawals for a period of about 2 weeks.

Interestingly, the series of attacks itself did not have much of an impact on the price of the ETC cryptocurrency, which throughout this period remained at around $ 6 per coin.

How to mine ETC?

The difficulty of extracting ETC is much lower than that of ETH. For this reason, in the case of Ethereum Classic, miners can use graphics processing units (GPUs). ETC mining is done on the same principles as for other Proof of Work (PoW) -based cryptocurrencies. For the work put into the extraction of each new block, users get a remuneration - in the case of Ethereum Classic it is 3.2 ETC.

How much does Ethereum Classic cost? On which exchanges is ETC listed?

The current exchange rate of the ETC cryptocurrency is around 5.90 USD per coin (as of 03/09/2020). This project is currently ranked 31st on CoinMarketCap. Its market capitalization is $ 686,732,589 - not much compared to Ethereum (ETH), which is just behind Bitcoin (BTC).

When it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, Ethereum Classic is listed on a much smaller number of platforms. You can find the full list here.

Wallet for Ethereum Classic - which one to choose?