What is the relationship between ETH and ETC, and what is the difference?

For newcomers who are new to digital currencies and miners, many people will confuse the two currencies of ETH and ETC. This article will tell you about ETC and its relationship with ETH.

  1. The past and present of ETH and ETC

In 2016, THE DAO used ETH for crowdfunding, resulting in the theft of more than 60 million U.S. dollars in ETH, which was a sensation. It stands to reason that the theft is the problem of the project itself, not the problem of ETH, but because this project is involved in the core personnel of the Ethereum Foundation and V God, the stolen currency will be replaced by a hard fork. The ETH after the hard fork is recovered and announced is the real ETH, and the coins before the fork are not counted.

From the economic point of view, the old version of the currency cannot be traded on the exchange, and the mined currency has no value. Therefore, miners can only use the upgraded mining program to mining on the new chain.

Since there is no hard fork in history, it is only a matter of time before the old chain disappears. But because some miners believe that they cannot tamper with the code at will for their benefit, they believe that the code is a law, and once it takes effect, no one has the right to change it. This also led to some miners maintaining the hash rate on the old chain and old mining procedures, so the old chain did not disappear immediately.

Later, Poloniex, the world’s largest Ethereum trading platform, announced that it would start trading the old version of ETH, and the old token was named ETC (Ethereum Classic). ETC thus has circulation value, and miners’ livelihoods continue, and the old chain also Survived smoothly. Therefore, there will be the current ETH and ETC.

  1. The similarities and differences between ETH and ETC

ETH and ETC belonged to the same entity before the fork, so the two are almost compatible with each other from a perspective. Therefore, most smart contracts deployed on ETH can also be deployed on ETC, as development tools such as Truffle and Zeppelin can be used interchangeably.

The difference is that the maximum issuance of ETC is between 210 and 230 million, while the maximum issuance of ETH has not yet been set. Because of the steady growth of ETH planned supply, the ETH blockchain has an average of 3% inflation during its life cycle. In ETC, inflation will reach 3% before 2025. By then, the total supply will reach 200 million ETC, and then there will be deflation.

ETH is shifting from POW proof of work to POS proof of equity, while ETC still adheres to the most decentralized proof of work. And the current price difference between ETH and ETC is more than 20 times. It can almost be said that ETC is the most undervalued digital currency in the world.

  1. Regarding the transaction speed of ETH and ETC

The average ETH is 25 seconds, which will be shortened after the upgrade.

ETC averages 14 seconds, and it will remain between 10-14 seconds after the upgrade.

  1. There are also differences in block capacity

As the daily transaction volume of ETH gradually exceeds 5 million, the problem of saturation can be solved by expanding the block.

There is still a lot of room for ETC’s current block capacity. However, as more and more people accept ETC, the block capacity will increase, just like ETH.

The above is the big difference between ETH and ETC in the past and present. As for the follow-up ETC to surpass ETH, it needs to be proved by time.