Ethereum Classic is a smart contract platform and ecosystem for decentralized applications and distributed computing. It was born due to a chain split on the original Ethereum blockchain. When the DAO-hack occurred, where 3.6m Ether was stolen, the Ethereum community discussed what to do.
Can Ethereum Classic be mined?
What differs Ethereum Classic from other Cryptocurrencies?
How much is Ethereum Classic worth today?
Where can you buy ETC?
Can ETC be sold for cash?
The majority favored a hard fork with the purpose of rendering the stolen Ether useless, but a small minority was strictly against it. They stated that “code is law” and it would be against the spirit of decentralized systems to “turn back time” and reverse the blockchain with the help of a 51% majority.
The hard fork happened, and Ethereum abandoned the old chain. The small minority forked off of the new Ethereum and decided to continue developing the old chain. This old chain is now known as Ethereum Classic; the ticker is ETC.
In July 2016, more specifically at block 1 920 000, the hard fork was executed. After the fork, the chains were split in two and since then act individually. Ethereum Classic became a parallel blockchain, where in contrast to Ethereum the stolen funds were never returned to their owners.
Yes, it is based on Proof-of-Work (PoW). The mining algorithm is Ethash, which is a modified version of the Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm.
The main points that differ Ethereum Classic from his bigger counterpart are that its maximum supply is capped and that they don’t have the massive resources and industry support like their bigger brother.
The maximum supply of ETC is 230 000 000 and the circulating supply at the time of writing is 101 442 324 ETC.
You can buy ETC on several cryptocurrency exchanges, most notably Bithump, Binance, Upbit, Huobi, and OKEx.
You can sell ETC for cash on several cryptocurrency exchanges that have fiat-pairings, most notably Bithump and Bitfinex.
The ETC team is actively working on further development and scalability of their platform.
Also, they are focussed on finding ways to integrate Ethereum Classic in the growing sector of the Internet of Things. Additionally, they work on the “Emerald Platform,” which is a set of libraries and tools for third-party application developers.
5.5/10 What I like is that ETC capped their maximum supply, this creates SoV-characteristics. The downside is that ETH has far more resources, industry contacts, and partnerships than Ethereum Classic. This could lead to ETC being tailed off.
Another negative is that the stolen coins from the DAO-hack are still accessible for the hacker on the ETH chain. He currently holds 3.36 million ETC. The Ethereum foundation is also in possession of a massive amount of ETC, although they liquidated 90% of their position which they acquired through the hard fork. But there 10% is still a big enough number to move the market.