Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum Foundation has sold 90% of its ETC

ETH (Ethereum fork) co-founder and developer Vitalik Buterin recently revealed in an online community that the Ethereum Foundation or its development team has sold nearly 90% of ETC (Ethereum Classic) tokens in the past six months.

ETC is a derivative project of ETH and a continuation of the original Ethereum chain. In order to compensate for the losses of DAO investors, ETH developers conducted a highly controversial hard fork, which was opposed by some community members, and the ETC blockchain was born.

Developers and miners who believed that ETH had a tendency to be centrally managed all chose to continue mining on the original Ethereum chain and created another token form, ETC. Several large exchanges, including Poloniex, supported this almost immediately and launched ETC transactions.

July 23, 2016 was the day when ETC was launched on Poloniex. Since then, the market value of ETC has reached one-third of ETH. This has also triggered a heated debate in online communities and forums: which one is the orthodox one, ETC or ETH?

After the ETC token was created, ETH holders also had an equal amount of ETC in their accounts on the exchange. In other words, if a user held X ETH on an exchange such as Poloniex before the hard fork, then X ETC would appear in his account balance at the same time.

Ethereum Foundation takes action on ETC

As a competitor of ETC, it is not surprising that the Ethereum Foundation decided to sell its ETC. The community was already prepared when ETC was born.

In fact, Vitalik Buterin had already firmly stated in August last year that he had no intention of cooperating with the ETC team. He also told the ETH community that even if the price of ETC exceeds that of ETH one day, he would still not choose to support ETC.

@jdebunt: I thought you supported fair competition between the two chains. Is this just a so-called PR statement?

@Vitalik Buterin: I don’t mind ETC’s existence, I’m just saying I have no interest in developing the ETC blockchain.

However, it is worth noting that some of ETC’s supporters are big names in China’s Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. Well-known companies and figures in the cryptocurrency circle, including BTCC and Chandler Guo, have publicly expressed their support for ETC because it advocates a decentralized management model and pure innovation.