Ethereum Classic, Often Considered A Cheaper Play, Outshines ETH On Spot ETF Approval Day: What's Going On?

On a day when the first-ever Ethereum ETH/USD spot ETFs have been approved in the U.S., Ethereum Classic ETC/USD seems to be stealing the spotlight from its sister chain.

What Happened: Ethereum Classic racked up gains of nearly 9% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro, positioning itself as the marker's second-best performer. 

Counterintuitively, Ethereum was trading at just a 1.56% premium, despite a major bullish trigger in the form of its spot ETFs approval by the SEC earlier today. 

ETC's trading volume also swelled, more than tripling in the last 24 hours to over $1.5 billion. Ethereum’s volume increased by only 85% in contrast, although overall volumes remained much larger because of the higher market cap.

ETC's current performance was reminiscent of its moves following Bitcoin BTC/USD spot ETF approvals earlier this year.

Why It Matters: The original Ethereum Chain was split into two separate blockchains back in 2016 over disagreements within the community following a hack. The newer chain inherited the name Ethereum as we know it, with ETH as its token, while the immutable original chain was renamed Ethereum Classic, with ETC as a token.

Ethereum Classic was created as a hard fork of the original Ethereum chain back in 2016 over disagreements within the community following a hack. The new chain inherited the name Ethereum as we know it, while the original one functions as Ethereum Classic.

While fundamentally different from each other, a lot of retail investors perceive ETC to be a cheaper alternative to ETH. ETH's market cap of $4.84 billion was a fraction of Ethereum's whopping $454 billion valuation.

A widely-followed X user Eugene Ng Ah Sio, recently picked ETC as the beta for Ethereum owing to specific advantages like less inflation, no unlocks, and a halving which was due in a week. 

Although I'm not a huge fan of trying to find betas for $ETH, if I had to pick, $ETC would be my fastest horse.

1. Dinosaur coin with minimal inflation and NO unlocks
2. Memories of BCH ripping up on BTC ETF approval
3. Plethora of ETH associated coins attempting to be beta via… pic.twitter.com/ZFqUxlq4gl

— Eugene Ng Ah Sio (@0xENAS) May 18, 2024

Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock.com

Price Action: At the time of writing, ETC was trading at $32.86, up 8.85% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. 

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