Ethereum Classic
6 min reading
Did you hear about Ethereum? Did you know about Ethereum Classic? If no, then let’s read more about it!

What Is Ethereum Classic?
If you are a newbie to the crypto world or an experienced trader, a phenomenon like Ethereum could not pass you by. On the wave of a sharp rise in bitcoin prices, more and more people are interested in cryptocurrencies. If almost everyone has heard about Ethereum, then the next most popular cryptocurrency Ethereum Classic is not inferior. In this article, we will take a detailed look at what Ethereum Classic is and how it works
Ethereum Classic (ETC)
ETC is a hard-fork of the original Ethereum platform that emerged in 2016 after the hacking of DAO, the Ethereum-based decentralized autonomous organization. Ethereum Classic was launched as a result of the Ethereum hard-fork when the community split into two opposing camps. On June 17, 2016, an unknown hacker discovered a security weakness that allowed his team to withdraw $50 million from the fund. As soon as the news was publicized, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market fell from $15 billion to less than $11 billion just in a few days. Thus, it is said that the main goal of the fork was to ensure the security of the platform and to reverse the hack, giving people their money back, as hackers have exploited some vulnerabilities of the system.
Features of Ethereum Classic
As you know, all transactions with cryptocurrency are irreversible and unchangeable. This provoked an outcry from crypto-enthusiasts who believed in the main principle of cryptocurrency that no one can interfere in the blockchain functioning to manipulate it. Important to know, the Ethereum Classic platform also uses smart contracts. That is the application operates exactly as it has been designed without any possibility of censorship, fraud, or interference of third parties. As you know, crypto-currencies are extremely volatile and unpredictable, so Ethereum Classic is not an exception. Furthermore, Ethereum Classic is the result of the splitting of the original blockchain. The latest blockchain is called Ethereum, and the old version is called Ethereum Classic. The main change took place in protocols, but the account history, as well as private keys, were saved.
The main idea of ETC
Ethereum Classic was launched to provide unlimited authority in managing digital currencies and facilitate the opportunity to make transactions with the help of smart contracts. Moreover, ETC is designed to maintain the system in its original condition and avoid major changes in technical structure.
ETC consensus mechanism
Important to note, Ethereum Classic worked on a proof-of-work consensus algorithm but after ICO in 2017, that discovered the scalability and privacy problems with the system, developers decided to switch to proof of stake approach. The main goal of this update was to improve the throughput capacity of the ETC system since only 19 transactions could be validated per second. Also, ETC was the subject of Attack 51% for several times that had a highly detrimental impact on the project.
However, despite the commitment to the classic version of Ethereum, the team of the ETC developers is going to introduce some improvements and updates regarding system security. In addition to “Mess,” Ethereum Classic also added a “Thanos” update in November 2020. It is intended to regulate the smart analysis algorithm from Ethash to Etchash. In March 2020, the Ethereum Classic project had a collaboration with Chainlink to integrate the feature of decentralized oracles into ETC that would facilitate the operating of the system with data from all around the world.
Conclusions
- Ethereum Classic is an open-source, decentralized, blockchain-based distributed crypto-currency platform.
- ETC employs smart contracts to maintain the decentralized network.
- Ethereum Classic emerged as a fork of Ethereum's Blockchain.