Price and capitalization of Ethereum Classic
December 2018 update: ETCDEV, the group working on the development of the ETC blockchain, announces the end of its existence due to a lack of financial means. In particular, the crash of the cryptocurrency market. They failed to raise funds during this period.
What is Ethereum Classic (ETC)?
Ethereum Classic is considered as the fork of Ethereum. In reality, Ethereum is the fork of the Ethereum Classic.
The fork took place after the TheDAO hack on June 17, 2016. While the start-up Slock it raises more than 200 million dollars, partly in Ethereum, a hacker manages to embezzle some of this money. The fork intervenes to go back and thus divide the blockchain into 2 distinct entities, thus making it possible to reimburse the unfortunate contributors. As a result, a second Ethereum blockchain appears, backed by all the big Ethereum names like Vitalik Buterin. Thereby, Ethereum Classic is the original chain of Ethereum, hence the word “Classic.”
One of ETC’s currencies is “immutable,” which means it cannot be changed. For Ethereum Classic contributors, no matter what happens, there should be no going back, no one should be able to make changes, whatever the cause. While the majority of people have switched to Ethereum, including Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, some people have stayed on the original blockchain, mostly for ideological reasons. The modification of the Ethereum blockchain following a single hack shows us that it can be affected by the actions of humans. It is also important to clarify that fraudulent ethers are still present on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, which tends to give an image of scammers ( crooks ) to people in favor of ETC.
Ethereum and Ethereum Classic have a common goal, only their visions differ.
How does Ethereum Classic work?
The immutability of the blockchain is one of the essential points of ETC. No matter what happens, the ETC blockchain should not be modified. From the moment something has happened, it is (almost) unthinkable to go back (cf: TheDAO case): “code is law,” or the code makes law.
ETC uses the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which can run scripts, smart contracts, and dApps.
The features offered by Ethereum Classic are mostly comparable to those offered by Ethereum. ETC makes it possible to transfer value to other people but also to operate smart, automatic, and complex contracts that cannot be modified or censored. The specifics of block duration, size, and rewards are nearly identical.
The desire to focus on the IoT ( Internet of Things ) is clearly announced. The goal is to become an efficient way to connect many devices around the world to exchange value and contracts.
One of ETC’s problems is the lack of compatibility with its fork: Ethereum. While the majority of the community, and therefore developers, have switched to this new blockchain, ETC is no longer compatible with ETH updates. Indeed, while ETH will gradually switch to PoS (proof of stake), ETC will continue to evolve into proof of work ( PoW ).
Running a node on ETC keeps the blockchain 100% decentralized with a P2P network. The main role of a node is to connect to others to download and synchronize data. Here are the software allowing you to run a node:
- Geth
- Parity
- Mantis
- Multi-Geth
Ethereum Classic uses Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus. Thus, miners solve complex mathematical calculations in order to create new blocks. If you want to mine ETC, you can join one of the following mining pools :
- Epool
- MinerGate
- 91Pool
- Europool
- ETC-Poolcrypto
- ClassicPool
- 2miners
- Coming
Team and partners
The Ethereum Foundation does not support Ethereum Classic.
The team is made up of many entities. Thus five entities are working jointly on the development of Ethereum Classic:
- ETCDEV is the first of them, it is made up of developers and engineers working on the research and development of the ETC blockchain.
- IOHK is the second, it is more specialized in mathematics.
- ETC COOPERATIVE is the team responsible for the development of the ETC ecosystem and its marketing.
- ETC LABS is a laboratory where many innovations for ETC are tested.
- Ethereum Commonwealth works on many blockchain projects and takes care of the Classic Ether wallet.
No partnership with large organizations currently exists.
The future of Ethereum Classic
According to their Road Map, the year 2018 must be devoted to reducing the “Difficulty Bomb” (difficulty of mining) and the development of parallel blockchains. This would allow better compatibility with Ethereum and improve the network’s speed.
In 2019, the objective will be to develop scalability (scaling up the network) up to 1,000 transactions per second. Knowing that Visa indicates that it can process more than 50,000 transactions per second, this is still quite low. On the other hand, if we compare this to Bitcoin and its five transactions per second or Ethereum and its 20, this could be a significant advance!
Another goal is to develop a thin client for IoT (Internet of Things) and mobile devices. In the same line, the objective is to be able to operate the ETC blockchain with other blockchains.
How to buy Ethereum Classic (ETC)?
If you want to buy Ethereum Classic, you can go through the Coinbase or Kraken platform. For Coinbase, you can buy it by credit card or bank transfer. On Kraken can only make a bank transfer. If you already have Bitcoins or Ethers, it is possible to send them to another platform ( Binance or Bitfinex ) where it will be possible to buy ETC.
How to store Ethereum Classic (ETC)?
The safest way to store your Classic Ethers is to use a hardware wallet. These are wallets in the form of USB keys. The two best known are the Ledger Nano S and the TREZOR.
These are the safest wallets.
- Desktop wallet: Emerald, Daedalus Mantis, Exodus, Parity
- Web wallet: Classic Ether Wallet, MyEtherWallet, MyCrypto
- Mobile wallet: Guarda, Trust, Jaxx, Coinomi
