Ethereum Classic (ETC) temporarily stood ahead of the altcoin pack, based on increased activity ahead of its planned September hard fork. ETC is up more than 32% this week, to above $7.41, rising from its stagnant position above $5.
ETC is an altcoin that has moved counter to other assets, and has offered gains when the rest of the market was depressed. Still, the recent rally is relatively small compared to the long-term drop of ETC prices. ETC has fallen dramatically in BTC terms since its peak at above 0.009 BTC in the summer of 2017. Since the peak of the bull market in December 2017, ETC has slid around 80% in BTC terms.
ETC peaked in dollar terms at above $45, later crashing to lows of $3.73. The current prices are a tentative recovery, as altcoins manage to regain some strength, but have failed to go through another season of strong rallies.
The Atlantis hard fork in September will aim at several goals for the network. The biggest change will be the completion of interoperability between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The Ethereum Classic network will also preserve mining and a relatively higher mining reward, while Ethereum aims to add staking and only preserve partial proof-of-work.
Ethereum Classic will also work with the Metronome project, offering new forms of blockchain interoperability.
The Ethereum Classic network currently works through around 30,000 transactions per day, the usual activity for mid-sized altcoins, comparable to Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BTC). In the meantime, the Ethereum network marks more than 700,000 transactions per day.
The Ethereum Classic hashrate had a spike after the Ethmine pool went ahead with a preliminary adoption of the Atlantis hard fork rules. Within days, the hashrate jumped from 8.6 to above 11 TH/s, the highest level in the past three months. The Ethereum hashrate, despite phasing out mining, is relatively high at above 173 TH/s. The Ethereum Classic network is also somewhat vulnerable to a 51% attack, with only $6,800 per hour to attack the network, and 42% of the required hashrate can be hired on Nicehash.
