Ethereum Classic is a cryptocurrency based on a different blockchain created through a hard fork of Ethereum. A hard fork refers to the process of artificially splitting a blockchain, and the Ethereum Classic hard fork was executed on July 20, 2016.

This originated from an incident in June 2016 when a person or group of people exploited a code vulnerability in the DAO system, one of the major projects built on the Ethereum platform, to gain undue profits. The Ethereum development team decided to invalidate the fraudulent transaction records and revert the chain to its pre-incident state to create a new chain, aiming to return funds to investors.

In that case, the previously hacked chain was supposed to disappear, but about 10% of people who opposed the hard fork remained without updating and continued generating blocks, which became the Ethereum Classic blockchain. In other words, the original blockchain containing the stolen Ethereum settled as a different blockchain and coin called Ethereum Classic.

Coin Features

1. Under the belief that "Code is law," they prioritize "immutability," the core value of blockchain, above all else. Immutability means that valid transactions should not be deleted or forgotten, and this is the biggest reason they remained on the original chain without forking after the Ethereum DAO incident.

2. Ethereum Classic changed its monetary issuance policy from Ethereum's original inflation policy (unlimited issuance) to a fixed supply method like Bitcoin. As a result, the maximum issuance is limited to 230 million coins, and the total supply is expected to be approximately 210 million coins. Mining rewards decrease by 20% every 5 million blocks.

Core Value

(Keywords: Smart contracts, platform scalability through DAPPs)

Since Ethereum Classic maintains the original unforked blockchain, the protocols and technologies it uses are identical to Ethereum. Therefore, smart contracts, the core of the Ethereum platform, and the technology to develop decentralized applications (DAPPs) on the platform apply equally to the Ethereum Classic platform. Currently, coins operating on the Ethereum Classic platform include Corion platform (COR), ETCWin (ETC), GeoFunders (GUNS), and others.