If you have been following the developments in cryptocurrency or planning to enrol for an Ethereum course, there is a very less chance that you have not heard about the Ethereum Vs. Ethereum Classic discourse. The hard fork that led to the creation of a new chain was a result of a huge attack on the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), a venture capital fund that was created to decentralize the cryptocurrency transactions and to automate the functions. The DAO was developed on the Ethereum platform.
This smart contract automates the cryptocurrency transactions based on a set of pre-determined conditions. Everything was working smoothly until the notorious attack on DAO happened in 2016, stealing $50 million, leaving the traders in absolute shock. Though the incident happened because of a fault in the structure of DAO, it sparked a lot of debates and eventually, resulted in a hard fork. Thus, the Ethereum was split into two branches. While the new branch retained the name Ethereum, the old one took up a new name, Ethereum Classic.
Now that you have an overview of what is what, let us look into some fundamental differences between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Difference Between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic
The proposal for a hard fork sparked an ideological difference, as many people believed that the new chain challenged the fundamental idea of the Ethereum being immutable. Both Ethereum and Ethereum Classic share some functional similarities. However, there are some fundamental differences that set them apart. There are marked differences in some of the main features, but the more striking ones appear on the philosophical and moral aspects. Lets us look at the differences one by one.
Differences in Philosophy
One of the founding ideas of blockchain was that it should be immutable. This is because the supporters believe that if a blockchain allows people to make changes according to their wish, that could lead to fraud. However, the new branch, Ethereum, does not advocate that. The Ethereum community members believed that a hard fork is necessary to serve justice. Ethereum devalued the stolen tokens and refunded those who had invested in those Ethers.
Differences in Value
Ethereum values almost 15 times than the Ethereum Classic. This is because Ethereum successfully garnered the support of many leading names in the crypto community. Also, it receives regular updates. Ethereum Classic has a lesser value compared to Ethereum, but recently, it managed to attract the backing of some prominent names.
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) is a support group formed by more than 200 market leaders such as Microsoft, Wipro, Intel, Accenture, JP Morgan, Thomson Reuters, Credit Suisse along with many start-ups and subject matter experts. They are all bound by a common factor; all of them believe in the potential of blockchain.
Differences in Potential and Features
The growth potential of Ethereum Classic is debatable. On the contrary, Ethereum is looking at a promising future. Looking at its rapid growth, experts are postulating that Ethereum could become the first cryptocurrency to reach the $10,000 mark after Bitcoin. Ethereum enjoys a higher hash rate than Ethereum Classic. As mentioned earlier, Ethereum keeps updating on a regular basis, but Ethereum Classic cannot access those updates.
There is a surge in the carer opportunities related to Blockchain. Needless to say, the technology industry has undergone tremendous change after the introduction of blockchain. Many fortune-500 companies are coming forward to espouse blockchain to support their growth. This underlines the career potential of blockchain and Ethereum, which is largely untapped. Check out the Ethereum courses offered by Imarticus if you are looking for a good Ethereum training in Fintech.
