According to one observer, Ethereum classic’s surge is consistent with its history of rising in response to significant Ethereum upgrades.
The cryptocurrency market has experienced some relief in July, with out-of-favor coins like UNI and MATIC and Ethereum Classic (ETC), the allegedly dead coin and not entirely identical copy of Ethereum’s ether (ETH) token, leading the recovery in digital assets with at least $1 billion in market value.
According to CoinDesk statistics, ETC has increased by 184% this month, while MATIC, a scaling system by Polygon, and UNI, a decentralized exchange from Uniswap, have increased by 102% and 86%, respectively. At the time of publication, ether had increased by 60% and market leader bitcoin (BTC) by 20%. From its $762.82 billion low last month, the overall market value of cryptocurrencies has increased to $1.14 trillion.
Coin-specific considerations as well as the general market risk reset, according to analysts, are at work.
According to Lucas Outumuro, head of research at IntoTheBlock, “ETC is being pushed by anticipation that ETH miners may switch to ETC and that there might be another hard fork that benefits them. A proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain will replace the network’s proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain as a result of Ethereum’s upcoming Merge. As a part of such a procedure, Ethereum’s Beacon Chain has been operational since 2020.
Following the Merge, which is anticipated to take place on September 19, Ethereum will begin functioning as a proof-of-stake (PoS) chain, forcing market players known as validators to stake, or retain, a minimum amount of coins to validate transactions in exchange for rewards. To validate transactions in a PoW system, miners must solve a computational challenge.
Due to the merging, Ethereum miners will need to relocate to Ethereum Classic, which is allegedly the only chain compatible with their mining equipment.
ASICs and GPUs are the two types of technology that makeup Ethereum’s mining network, according to a study paper by Sami Kasab of Messari. “The drawback of ASICs is that they can only be used to mine ETH; other uses are not possible. As a result of its hashing method being consistent with ETH’s algorithm, Ethereum Classic is the only other PoW currency that can be mined with an ETH ASIC.”
The Bitmain-affiliated mining pool AntPool just contributed $10 million to the Ethereum Classic ecosystem. The DAO, a smart contract running on the Ethereum blockchain, was hacked in 2016, leading to the creation of Ethereum Classic, a hard-forked version of Ethereum.
The increase in ETC in July is in line with other instances of rallying around significant Ethereum upgrades.
“With Ethereum’s Berlin upgrade, ETC had a rise in April 2021. In the same vein, ETC appears to be strengthening in response to anticipation around the Merge “According to the Toronto-based cryptocurrency platform FRNT Financial, investors may view ETC as a hedge against any potential complications with the shift.
Early today, ETC traded at a 3 1/2-month high of $45 on the main exchanges.
