Ethereum Classic – the first version of the project known today as Ethereum. The second option emerged as a result of a hard fork, through which developers fixed the consequences of the hack of the decentralized autonomous organization The DAO in June 2016. The project team had two options for action:
Conduct a soft fork – freeze the stolen funds and revert the system to the moment before the hack.
Conduct a hard fork – separate a new branch from the Ethereum blockchain without gaps in the security system and continue to develop the project on it.
The developers chose the second option. At this moment, an ideological problem arose. The fact is that one of the decentralization rules that the Ethereum team adhered to states that 'code is law'. Accordingly, it cannot be changed.
The implemented hard fork can be seen, from a technical perspective, as a replacement of vulnerable code. Thus, this solution contradicts the community's rules.
After the hard fork, the project was supposed to continue operating on the second, error-free version. The first one was planned to be abolished. Some members of the crypto community disagreed with this decision and supported the first version of Ethereum. Thus, the project split into two full-fledged parts.
To avoid confusion, the first version of the platform began to be called Ethereum Classic (ETC) – classic Ethereum.
The updated version was named Ethereum.
The Ethereum Classic team, unlike Ethereum, does not have such ambitious plans for improving the technical component of the project.
