Altcoins get added to various exchanges on a daily basis, however when Coinbase adds another digital asset – it is big news. The most popular crypto exchange in the US has only offered four virtual currencies so far – bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin. The news have recently broke that a fifth digital currency is going to be added in the next couple of months and that coin is ethereum classic (ETC).

We are pleased to announce our intention to add support for Ethereum Classic (ETC) on Coinbase in the coming months.https://t.co/bUG4iLUr2J — Coinbase (@coinbase) June 12, 2018

Ethereum classic is a result of the hard fork that split the original ethereum blockchain into two cryptocurrencies that we know today. The two projects are similar in being decentralized smart contract platforms and share their blockchain history until the point of split in July 2016.

The hard fork was needed as the majority of ethereum’s community decided to fix the damage caused by the DAO hack that resulted in the loss of 3.6 million ether tokens, which were worth around $50 million at the time. While ethereum classic proponents claim they wanted to follow ethereum’s original vision, ethereum proved to be far more successful with thousands of ICOs and apps being created, based on its platform.

Like most other cryptocurrencies, ethereum classic has been on a downward spiral over the last month, losing over 15% of its price. However, the public announcement by Coinbase has breathed new life into the cryptocurrency as the ETC price spiked by over 20% immediately after the news went public. ETC was trading at $12.90 just before the announcement and quickly climbed to a high of $16.10. The price has gone through a minor correction since then but ETC is still trading at $15.75 at press time.

Coinbase went on to add that, “As part of this process, customers can expect to see public-facing APIs and other signs that the asset is being added. When we reach the final testing phase of the technical integration, which we expect to occur over the next few months, we will publicly announce a launch date for trading via our blog and Twitter.“

The exchange also ensured that traders with inside information were not able to have an early access to trade on the news, which is what happened with the latest crypto addition to Coinbase – bitcoin cash. While most other exchanges offer a significantly broader variety of cryptocurrencies to trade, Coinbase has decided to tread carefully and work in tandem with regulators, who are still trying to evaluate the legal status of virtual currencies.

It has been a busy period lately for ethereum classic as its developers had to implement a hard fork of their own to eliminate a so-called ‘difficulty bomb’, which was a feature of the original ethereum blockchain, designed to significantly increase the mining difficulty.

Additionally, ETC has come under fire lately, as a Brazilian researcher estimated it would only cost $55 million to conduct a ‘51% attack’ on its blockchain, which would result in profits of over $1 billion.

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