In the aftermath of the Ethereum Hard Fork prompted by the DAO Hack, the outvoted 15% are rising up with an alternate blockchain now worth $200 million. Alex Sunnarborg Follow Aug 1, 2016 · 3 min read

As Ethereum moves past block #1,920,000, its blockchain will forever wear the mark of the “hard fork”, a smart contract executed to transfer & recover funds previously taken from The DAO by an anonymous hacker.

The controversial move was enacted after over a month of debate that culminated in a vote amongst the Ethereum community that approximately 15% of voters opposed.

In response, several miners & members of the community that were opposed to hard-forking the Ethereum blockchain have continued to mine on an alternate version of the Ethereum blockchain that does not include The DAO related hard fork. The project is now being called Ethereum Classic & the counterpart to ETH on the Ethereum network is called ETC.

In terms of tech upkeep & improvements, Ethereum Classic intends to closely mirror the upgrades to Ethereum.

The main goal of the project is to ensure survival of the original Ethereum blockchain. We will strive to provide alternative for people who strongly disagree with DAO bailout and the direction Ethereum Foundation is taking their project. We fork Ethereum & follow Ethereum development except for any features they introduce into existing clients that violate the key principles of openness, neutrality and immutability. — Ethereum Classic Homepage

To the surprise of many, numerous exchanges quickly expressed interest in adding ETC trading to their platforms for interested investors & have gone live for trading with bitcoin, ether, & fiat.

After quickly dropping to a value of less than $1, ETC has climbed its way north over the last week with a value currently around 20% of ETH. ETH currently has a market cap of $1 Billion, marking ETC’s market cap at $200 Million.

Trading volume has been extremely active lately, especially in the BTC/ETC markets on leading exchanges — 24 hour trading volume in ETC has frequently exceeded that of ETH markets recently.

New ETC markets have already seen 5 minute spans with trading volumes north of $2 Million & daily volumes north of $100 Million.

For some more network level comparisons, since the hard fork, the Ethereum blockchain has included an additional 2,500 blocks over Ethereum Classic, & has about 5 times the combined hash rate.

Chaos & controversy aside, Ethereum Classic has yet again proven that we’re in for a future of several alternative blockchains & related assets whether we like it or not.

-Alex Sunnarborg

Founder & CFO — Lawnmower

Disclaimer: All viewpoints are completely my own. Nothing presented represents the viewpoints, opinions, etc. of any corporation or organization and all data/charts/analyses are for illustrative and discussion purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as fact, advice, recommendation, or anything of similar nature.