What Is The Difference Between Ethereum And Ethereum Classic?

Ethereum and Ethereum Classic are two of the largest cryptocurrencies today. The former is the second largest crypto coin with a market cap of $364 billion, while the latter sits at number 29 with a market cap of over $5 billion.

Ethereum Classic came about after a contentious hard fork where participants disagreed over whether to revert the blockchain to cancel out the effects of a major hack. Thus, Ethereum Classic became the network that chose not to revert the chain. Over the years, the project has sought to differentiate itself from Ethereum by sticking to its own rules, and this has led to the debate about why Ethereum Classic isn’t a good substitute for Ethereum?

Let us explore the differences and the similarities between these two projects.

Ethereum.org describes this project as an “open access to digital money and data-friendly services for everyone no matter your background or location. It is a community-built technology behind the cryptocurrency ETH and thousands of applications you can use today.” The project was the first to introduce smart contracts, thus expanding what was possible with blockchain networks. It’s possible to launch decentralized apps that allow anyone to access various financial services that were exclusively reserved for a few individuals. This makes it possible for anyone to send, receive, borrow funds from anywhere, plus earn interest. Ethereum also leads the NFT marketplace that is growing in popularity and likely to prove crucial for proving identity within the metaverse.

As discussed earlier, Ethereum Classic is a hard fork of Ethereum that launched in July 2016. It mainly functions as a smart contract network with the ability to host and support decentralized applications. Since becoming its own network, this project has sought to differentiate itself from Ethereum, with the two networks’ roadmaps diverging further and further from each other with time. Developers state that no “official” team is attached to the project and that its “global development community is a permissionless ‘do-0rcracy,’ where anyone can participate.” Ethereum Classic focuses on immutability through its upgrades, popularly expressed as “code is law.”

There are a few differences between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The first one is that Ethereum reverted the blockchain and canceled the effects of the DAO hack, whereas Ethereum Classic chose to continue with the old blockchain. Interestingly, this makes Ethereum Classic the original chain. Another difference lies in how transactions are processed on the networks. To achieve scalability and ease congestion, Ethereum is working on transitioning to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism that is less. However, Ethereum Classic still uses the proof of work consensus mechanism that consumes a lot of energy. And finally, Ethereum Classic tokens have a cap on maximum supply at 210,700,000 coins, whereas there is none for Ethereum coins.

Both assets are available for trading on various platforms under different tinkers. You will find Ethereum listed as ETH and Ethereum Classic as ETC. You can trade both on the spot and in derivative markets. Crypto exchanges will offer access to the real asset on spot markets where you will aim to buy cheap and sell high before repeating the process and keeping a profit. Also, some exchanges will offer access to derivative markets where you will trade both assets using leverage. Also, brokers such as PrimeXBT will allow you to trade various CFDs attached to these assets. The incredible thing is you get to profit whether the market rises or falls, unlike spot markets, and your capital is boosted, increasing your potential profitability. But, in the same way, your profits are boosted, so are your losses; therefore, you need to be very careful. It’s important to understand how to conduct technical and fundamental analysis plus practice proper risk management. Platforms such as PrimeXBT have a copy trading module known as Covesting that allows new traders to copy the strategies of experts and share their success as they master trading.