Why Is Ethereum Classic Surging, How Is It Different From Ethereum?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) traded 13.94% higher at $17.01 in the early hours of Tuesday at press time.

What Happened: The cryptocurrency, which backs a version of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, has risen 38.03% on a seven-day trailing period.

ETH, which is now the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization behind Bitcoin (BTC), traded 3.86% higher at $2,125.45 at press time. BTC traded 1.38% higher at $58,900.49.

ETC has returned 200.4% so far since the year began, while ETH and BTC have given 186.16% and 102.18% returns so far.

See also: How to Buy Ethereum (ETH)

At end of March, Ethereum Classic’s team tweeted that Grayscale Investments, a part of the Digital Currency Group, added nearly 161,612 ETC to its coin holdings. 

Grayscale can't seem to get enough of $ETC, adding ~161,612 more in the last 30 days.https://t.co/1fzod6Mk90 https://t.co/sfRID8Xu5b

— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) March 25, 2021

Barry Silbert, the founder, and CEO of DCG is a proponent of ETC classic and often enthuses regarding the coin in public, according to Reuters.

Why It Matters: Ethereum Classic emerged after a contentious hard fork on the ETH blockchain in July 2016 after a disagreement over reverting the blockchain to reverse a hacking. 

Ethereum Classic. Can't Beat The Real Thing. pic.twitter.com/0abwu9hwmp

— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) March 28, 2021

The hacking involved DAO or the decentralized autonomous organization, which had raised $150 million in an initial coin offering months earlier.

While ETC is the branch of the chain that did not revert the chain, ETH followed another course. 

Both the coins support smart contracts, but that is where the similarity ends as ETH has taken a performance-based focus in its 2.0 iteration as it moves to a Proof of Stake model. 

Image Courtesy: Etherplan.com 

Another key difference is the monetary policy, while ETC has a fixed supply capped at 210 million ETC, Ethereum 2.0’s monetary policy can be changed by its developer community, according to Etherplan, a website maintained by Donald McIntyre, a former financial consultant at UBS Securities and Morgan Stanley.