The RISE of ETHEREUM CLASSIC - A Black Swan Moment?
Following the recent fork of Ethereum to retrieve the "stolen" DAO funds the old chain has been continued by those who opposed the precedent of censorship set by the hard fork.
This has become known as Ethereum Classic (ETC).
It was expected by most people that ETC would just quietly go off and die - those small number of miners using persisting the old chain would just give up and follow the herd.
However, the surprise listing on Poloniex Exchange today has lead to a surge in price with ETC trading at about 7% of the value of ETH. The volume has hit over 19,000 BTC on this particular exchange (ranking at number 2 with ETH at 43000 BTC) which makes it about 44% of the ETH volume.
I have also been hearing from fellow miners that they are switching to mining ETC due to the lower hash rate potentially giving them greater rewards. I am also going to switch over myself as an experiment to see how it works out - unfortunately I sold off most of my mining GPUs long ago so can only do so with a single gaming GPU now.
It would be interesting to see if we end up in the situation where the ETC hash rate (whilst not equal to ETH) is at a respectable level compared to ETH and is greater than many other big altcoins.
The current difficulty for ETC is about 2.5 TH here compared to around 61.78 TH for ETH here - this would suggest a hash rate of about 4% for ETC compared with ETH.
(Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a block explorer for ETC that displayed the exact hashrate if you know of one please let me know.)
Could this be a black swan moment?
If so what does this mean for ETH?
Could ETC prevail over ETH?
Let me know what you think below? Are you a miner - if so which chain are you mining and why?
Edit:
Interesting article here: Zsolt Felfoldl one of the ethereum foundation developers has just made a post in support of ETC:
https://medium.com/p/a-tale-of-two-chains-3f6d58a9df4a
Thanks to @qumatru on twitter for pointing this out but there is already a mining pool for ETC:
(Ether Classic logo linked from: Ether Classic Website)
How will ETHC maintain its value if the 2 biggest dApps are not going to support it?
Digix and Maker released a statement saying that they wish no ill to ETHC but they consider it a separate coin and they will not support it in anyway..
I don't think either of those DAPPS have that much of a sway right now. It might change in the future but if ETC hangs around long enough it might get it's own and who knows maybe Digix and Maker might even re-consider. Right now what they do is irrelevant if there are enough miners and traders supporting ETC.
They are the only dapps that matter, them plus Augur and Rep won't work on the old chain either based on how you interact with it. They can't reconsider -- they would have to develop on both. Your last comment is true but it's pretty irrational, traders and someone is effectively subsidizing that ecosystem where value can't really actually develop. It's like advanced trolling but the kind that costs money. So be it. It's fascinating nonetheless.
Yes whatever happens it has at least made things exciting. There is also the possibility that ETC becomes more of a trading currency like bitcoin. Will be interesting to see how things pan out.
Apparently some DAPPS may not work with ETC (but seems like a deliberate ploy by the makers to me). Spot on insights as always. Right the lower price of ETC may make it a better choice for trading and mining profitability.
Shapeshift might get in on it.
Source - https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/757290185893699585
His reddit post was very much wait & see. Not rushing into it. He also asked who were not tech savvy to not try to anything with ETHC and made it seem dangerous. Voorhees on reddit
Weird synchronicity. I didn't see that tweet and just messaged them to ask if they were going to add. Awesome if they would. Are you mining it?
I'm not a miner and I'm kinda split on the ETC ETH debate.
A lot of people are.
Any further news on this?
Now when talking about ether we have to ask classic or hard fork. Never a dull moment especially with steem the last two weeks.
Exactly. Things were perhaps getting a bit too comfortable and the ether hubris and triumphalism of the HF was such that you just know something was going to happen to make things interesting.
The timing of the release onto Polo came in at nearly the top of this current rise, which is a bit suspect as it would not be hard to envision what this would do to the market prices... add 1 part uncertainty + 1 part chaos + 1 part while most are sleeping = an easy short opportunity. Thinking back to the DAO hack, the timing was also curious when you think about it. Lesson = when everything seems peachy, expect the unexpected b/c it's in someone's best interest to make that happen.
Yes that especially applies in the crypto world. There is a tendency for everything to be going well before there is a sudden unexpected calamity e.g. Mt Gox, Mintpal, the VRC theft etc.
Poloniex did also some other suprising decisions regding ETC and Loans, I described here:
https://steemit.com/etherium/@rnevet/the-eth-harkfork-poloniex-etc-ethereum-classic-token-and-what-i-m-missing
TLDR for people loaning ETH they credited the ETC to the borrower.
Thanks. I suspect a lot of people are not aware of this and may not find out until their loans terminate.
Hey guys be sure to check out the play by play of last night/this morning with full documented pictures and such...
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@mastertrader777/major-crypto-currency-alert-etc-the-original-eth-is-now-trading-on-poloniex-why-i-just-bought-over-10k-etc
Was up all night reporting on this. Come check out my thread listed above for more details of my little diary
LMAO David Seaman is now panic streaming on why Ethereum Classic is A Scam:
I guess after this 51% attack gets reported on as being successful, that may well slice n dice ETC.
Imagine all the people buying via Coinbase - likely their first crypto experiences getting burned by these huge percentages over the weekend. Will be interesting what happens - price has hit th 61.8% retracement - looking for a bounce here.
It's certainly exciting whatever happens.
Yes indeed it is... I'm sure I was supposed to be something else today - oh well.
What will be interesting is what the DAO attacker does with his ETC... seems like he might want to punish ETH to pump his ETC's - I'm sure they are clever enough to do that.
I suspect so. Otherwise those 3 million ETC are pointless.
This moment was fascinating to me because I didn't exchanges to list it so quick but now BitSquare lists it as well. Exchanges make bank based on the trading volume so this debate about the hardfork must be fueling some $$$.
It raises some interesting questions around legitimacy. I found reading this post interesting: https://bitflikz.com/blogs/news/ethereum-whales-offer-legal-support-for-dao-hacker-challenging-foundation
I'm not saying these claims are legitimate but it does raise some questions when you think about how the hard fork happened and what it means for people. To whom is the foundation bound to?
I think the foundation should obviously be for whatever is best for the ecosystem and the users. Unfortunately they are human and I think are being swayed by their own financial incentives. Thanks for the article will give it a read when I have a moment.
This one of the FUDdiest FUD things I've ever seen in my life. And that's saying something. Especially starting it with "Puppets."
Lol. It's what crypto does best. FUD.
Looks like ETH supporters are now DDOSing the ETC pool. Not as surprise since some of them were calling for this from the beginning.