Ethereum Classic
About Ethereum Classic
The price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) is $17.68 today, as of Sep 16 08:21 p.m., with a 24-hour trading volume of $106.05M. Over the last 24 hours, the price has decreased by -2.32%. Ethereum Classic currently has a circulating supply of 148.77M and a market cap of $2.63B.
ETC is the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum Classic, a blockchain project that was created in 2016 when Ethereum’s blockchain split into two separate chains following a disagreement among members of its community.
The old chain that remained after the split became known as Ethereum Classic, and has further separated itself from Ethereum over time by adopting a deflationary monetary policy with a hard cap on the total number of ETC that will be created.
When the split first happened, everyone who held ether at the time (the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum) received the exact same amount of ethereum classic in their wallets for free.
But even though the two coins initially had the same future supply projections, differences came about over time as each coin evolved. While Ethereum doesn’t have a hard cap on how many native tokens will be created, Ethereum Classic executed a number of upgrades to change its monetary policy to be deflationary, meaning the number of tokens created decreases over time. That is supposed to make ETC a better store of value than Ethereum, because its tokens are scarcer.
Because of the upgrades, Ethereum Classic’s supply is capped at 210.7 million and its block reward declines by 20 percent every 5 million blocks, or roughly every two and a half years.
According to CoinDesk’s historical price data, ETC’s price surged to a peak of $42 during the 2017 bull run, before crashing to a low of $3 during the crypto-wide bear market. Amid the resurgence of buying momentum in 2021, ETC’s price skyrocketed to an all-time high of $134.