Almost six years ago, in July 2016, a hard fork of Ethereum was used to address the notorious DAO hack. This particular fork split the chain into two factions and introduced a new crypto asset called Ethereum Classic to the crypto community. For the past several years, both chains have coexisted using the same proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm, and with the merge approaching, speculators assume that Ethash PoW miners will migrate to mining Ethereum Classic. Over the past two weeks, Ethereum Classic has gained more than 124% against the US dollar, and the network’s hash rate has also increased significantly.
Ethereum Classic catches triple-digit gains
over the past two weeks.
Ethereum Classic (ETC)turns 6 this month and has seen significant gains over the past 14 days. In fact, since The Merge’s due date was revealed,. etchas increased in value alongside its counterpartethereum (ETH)
while ETHhas gained a whopping double-digit 45.7% in two weeks;ETChas gained double digits in two weeks; ETChas gained 124.2% in that same period; despite a 124% gain, year-to-date. the ETCis still down 34%, about 80% lower than the crypto asset’s all-time high of $167 per unit.
ETCshares the same consensus algorithm asETHand PoW miners who used to mine ether have begun the transition and are nowETCchain; they appear to be mining on the ETCchain; in mid-July, when the preliminary Merge date was penciled in,the hash rate on ETCwas 17.39 terahashes per second (TH/s), but is now 20.88 TH/s, a 20% up.
ETChit a high this week at 21.41 TH/s, and the network is also approaching the all-time high recorded last year. ETChash rate all-time high wasat 28.53 TH/son May 7, 2021 with a block height of 12,695,074. At the pace of the Ethereum Classic hash rate, it is quite possible that the hash rate will exceed its all-time high in the near future.
Korean Won accounts for over 20% of Ethereum Classic transactions
ETCaverage commission is much cheaper thanETHaverage commission is much cheaper than average ETHETHaverage commission today is0.002 ETHor $3.31 but the averageETCfee is 0.000096 ETCfee is 0.000096 ETC or $0.0031 per transfer Tether (USDT) is the largest trading pair inETC, with this stablecoin earning 59.17% of all trades today.102} Following USDT USDTis Korean Won, accounting for 20.82 %; ETCtrades 20.82%, with the USDT; ETCis the third largest trading pair with 7.84%; and ETCis the second largest trading pair with 7.84%, with the USDT
110} 11.53% of Korean exchange Bithumb’s volumecomes from ETC swaps; ETCswaps,22.96%of upbit volume comes fromETCtrading against the Korean won (KRW) is also available. In terms of decentralized finance (defi), the Ethereum Classic network lags far behind the 8 ball with respect to defi development.
Ethereum (ETH) has the largest value locked out of all blockchains today at$56.62 billiontotal value locked (TVL). This is more than 65% of the $87.56 billion locked in countless blockchains supporting the defi protocol. The TVL for Ethereum Classic, on the other hand, is very small, with only $175,483 on July 27, according to statisticsfrom defillama.comThere is a total of
133} ETCdefi applications compared to Ethereum’s 523 protocols.135} Over 92% of the value locked inETC defi applications are held on Hebeswap, an automated token exchange. 137} The rest of ETC’s defi TVL or just $12,366 is held on Etcswap and Swap Cat.
If miners continue to see value inETCIf they continue to see value in PoW security for ETC, ETC-based defi protocols and smart contract applications could be more developed.ETCalso has a supply cap set at 210,700,000, whereas Ethereum’s supply is unlimited. Currently, 136,026,596 are in circulation; ETCis currently in circulation, which means only 74,673,404 are left to mine ETC
Ethereum (ETH) network and community is in many ways much larger than the Ethereum Classic (ETC) ecosystem, and by market cap,ETHis huge compared toETHcompared to ETCETH, the second largest crypto asset by market capitalization at $193.36 billion, representing 17.7% of the $1 trillion crypto economy. ETCon the other hand, at $4.39 billion, represents 0.402% of the crypto economy.
What do you think about
167} the recent price spike and hash rate increase in ETC? Do you expect ether miners to migrate to the ethereum classic chain? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons