Ethereum Classic is building a next generation of flexible and intuitive smart contract platforms that are powered by Etherium Classic to provide a global, secure and decentralised platform based on smart contracts.
Ethereum Classic is the unchanged blockchain network of the original Ethereum network. The Ethereum project’s mainnet was publicly released through Frontier in July 2015. However, in 2016, hackers were able to exploit a series of vulnerabilities and hacked Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) organisation funds. The hack resulted in the loss of more than 3.6 million Ethereum from DAO.
To reverse the hack, a short notice was released regarding the vote held on the CarbonVote to determine if the community agrees to restore the blockchain back before the DAO hack. Interestingly, only about 5.5% of the total ETH holders participated in the vote, and 25% of the favour vote came from a single address.
As the majority of the voter favours the hard fork, the change was made four days later. The restored blockchain kept the name “Ethereum”, and they decided to keep the original network as Ethereum Classic.
What is the difference between Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC)?
Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum blockchain that was left from the hard fork from the DAO network. The main difference of the blockchains are that the new Ethereum blockchain would be moving to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) process in ETH 2.0 whereas the original Ethereum Classic blockchain depends on Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. The use of PoS on the Ethereum blockchain would greatly reduce the use of electricity energy, thus, it would be more environmentally friendly.
Another difference between these two blockchain is the total amount of token supply. The new Ethereum blockchain does not limit the total amount of ETH token supplies whereas the ETC has a total supply limit of 210 million tokens.
The biggest changes of these two blockchains are the immutability of the transaction on the network. Ethereum Classic blockchain adheres to the original blockchain philosophy of irreversible transactions. However, the new Ethereum blockchain network would allow past transactions to be modified.
What is Ethereum Classic’s Vision?
Ethereum Classic is building a new generation of blockchain platforms for a new internet infrastructure. Ethereum Classic aims to provide a secure and fast transaction platform to support the development of Decentralised Apps (DeApp).
There have been many changes and upgrades to the Ethereum Classic project. The goal of the project would be to continue building a global payment network using smart contracts that can function without a centralised governance.
How many ETC are there?
The total ETC supply is 210,700,000 tokens. The total limit of ETC supply was determined in December 2017 with the Gotham hard fork upgrade. The upgrade added a bitcoin inspired deflationary emission schedule and it would reduce the block reward by 20% for every 5,000,000 blocks.
What does ETC serve in the ecosystem?
Applications that run on the Ethereum Classic blockchain network would need to use ETC to pay for the transaction fees (gas fees) on the blockchain.
Future of Ethereum Classic
The future of Ethereum Classic might be less exciting than Ethereum as Ethereum seems to be the more secure and recognised of the two networks, especially with the security concerns of Ethereum Classic.
ETC investors may have already lost interest with the DAO hacks. Before Ethereum classic redesign its blockchain network to prevent such major fraud and security vulnerabilities, Ethereum Classic might have a difficult time to convince investors and developers to onboard its ecosystem. However, it would also depend on the future of smart contracts on the Ethereum Classic network and how it could be adapted for a common use.
How to mine ETC？
ETC could be mine using GPU graphic cards or suitable ASIC machines. Miners could earn their share of profit depending on the computation power that they provided to solve the block.
Where to store ETC?
Ethereum Classic (ETC) is based on the Ethereum network (ERC-20), therefore, it could be kept in any ETH compatible digital wallet such as Metamask and imToken.
Conclusion
Along with many of the existing cryptocurrencies, Ethereum Classic will likely continue to strive to be a digital store of value. Despite the DAO hacks and other attacks such as 51% attacks on the Ethereum Classic blockchain network, Ethereum Classic continues to survive and is constantly updating its network. Nevertheless, Ethereum Classic developers would continue to support and maintain the blockchain network and work towards their digital payment vision.
