Ethereum Classic (etc) Price Index

Ethereum Classic (ETC) debuted in July 2016 as a hard fork of Ethereum (ETH). Its primary function is as a network for smart contracts that can host and support decentralized applications (DApps). ETC is its native token.

Since its inception, Ethereum Classic has sought to distinguish itself from Ethereum, with the technical roadmaps of the two networks diverging more and more over time.

After a major hacking incident led to the theft of 3.6 million ETH, Ethereum Classic was created to preserve the integrity of the existing Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum Classic Founders?

Ethereum Classic is the legacy chain of Ethereum, and its true creators are Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, the original Ethereum developers.

In July 2016, Ethereum participants disagreed over whether to revert the blockchain to undo the effects of a major hack, resulting in a contentious hard fork. This affected The DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that had raised roughly $150 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) several months prior.

Ethereum Classic was created as the network that did not revert the blockchain. According to the developers, there is no "official" team associated with the project, and the "global development community is a permissionless 'do-ocracy' in which anyone can participate."

What Differentiates Ethereum Classic?

The primary objective of Ethereum Classic is to preserve the Ethereum blockchain as it existed prior to the DAO hack.

The legacy network initially appealed to those who disagreed with Ethereum's response, but it has since gained a wider fan base, including prominent investors such as Barry Silbert, CEO of investment firm Grayscale.

As a nonprofit organization, ETC's developers have no intention of turning the network into a for-profit enterprise. As with Ethereum, users pay transaction fees, which are collected by miners according to the proof-of-work (PoW) mining algorithm.

In contrast to Ethereum, Ethereum Classic has no plans to switch to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining algorithm, although multiple developers continue to work on future enhancements such as scaling solutions.

In circulation, how many Ethereum Classic (ETC) coins are there?

ETC began in a technical state very similar to that of ETH, with the exception of how DAO hack transactions were handled.

Since launch, however, tokenomics have changed, with participants voting in December 2017 to cap the supply of ETC. The maximum supply of ETC is thus approximately ten times that of Bitcoin (BTC), while ETH has no limit.

ETC employs a PoW mining algorithm, which functions similarly to Bitcoin — miners are rewarded with new coins for competing to validate the blockchain. The ETC block reward decreases over time, with the next decrease occurring at block 15,000,000, approximately in April 2022, when the reward will decrease from 3.2 ETC to 2.56 ETC per block.

How Secure Is the Ethereum Classic Network?

The Ethereum Classic network is protected by proof-of-work, but as a minority chain, it has been the target of repeated attacks.

The most recent of these 51 percent attacks occurred in August of 2020 and aimed to seize control of mining hashrate, execute spurious transactions, and double spend coins.