ETC London Conference sets sail with system security as top priority

ETC (Ethereum Classic) has officially moved away from the Keynesian heresy and turned to the Austrian School of Economics advocated by Bitcoin.

Arvicco, the anonymous coordinator of the ETC project and cross-chain transaction programmer, said so.

Last Tuesday, ETC enthusiasts gathered in London for an event. The meeting was attended by Jon Matonis, a well-known cryptocurrency enthusiast who was the first person to publicly praise Bitcoin in a mainstream media platform such as Forbes Magazine and is also the founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation.

This is the first time that the ETC community has brought together top thinkers to discuss cryptocurrency development and ETC monetary policy.

This meeting was hosted by ETC supporters and did not focus on the topic of "copycat platforms" (implying that ETC is based on ETH's code). Specific plans such as the ETC Improvement Protocol (ECIP) became the focus of this meeting. Once some ECIPs are successfully deployed, ETC and ETH will take completely different paths.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, ETC is about to move away from ETH's unlimited inflation model and switch to a fixed currency issuance plan similar to Bitcoin. ETC's goal is no longer to build a smart contract platform, nor will it completely switch to the PoS mining mechanism as Vitalik Buterin said.

Matthew "snaproll" Mazur set a cap on the number of ETC tokens mined and issued in ECIP-1017. But ETC will not undergo regular "halvings" like Bitcoin (the supply of Bitcoin mining is halved every four years, designed to curb inflation).

ECIP-1017 stipulates that the total amount of ETC issued before 2070 is 210 million. There are currently 87 million ETC tokens in circulation.

The proposal has not yet reached a consensus in the community, but Arvicco said that ECIP-1017 is very popular. Although ETC's user base is gradually expanding, and many industry giants including BTCC have expressed support for ETC, it still cannot escape the continuous vulnerability attacks on the ETH chain, so ETC plans to hard fork again in January next year.

Arvicco said:

We hope to use the wisdom of the cryptography community to analyze our current development environment and the lessons learned from Bitcoin to find the best development model.

He added:

One of the things we learned from the Bitcoin system is that the disruptive effect of the 'halving day' is too strong, so we plan to curb inflation in a more 'gentle' but more frequent manner.

Arvicco said that ETC is still looking for a suitable governance framework and tools for its "truly decentralized community." Like the recent ideas of Steemit developers, ETC also advocates the use of blockchain native tokens.

Monetized platform tokens are an essential component of the blockchain system, a model that ties together important stakeholders, including miners, investors, developers, and users. Financial stability is impossible without tokens.

ETC supporters attribute Arvicco's view to the Austrian School of Economics, which is the foundation of the ETC community. The fact that ETH chose to hard fork and roll back the transaction proves that Buterin's chain is changeable or easily interfered with.

Arvicco analyzed:

A correct monetary policy should support the monetization of tokens, thereby ensuring the alignment of interests and the long-term successful development of the platform.

Although users believe that ETC is an independent blockchain after the DAO fork, the two platforms (ETC and ETH) are still not completely separated. The ETC code is fully compatible with the ETH blockchain, but its security model and monetary policy are completely different from ETH.

Arvicco said:

Similar to Bitcoin’s anti-inflation model, ETC will also bring benefits to investors and miners, thereby ensuring the high security of the blockchain and realizing the monetization value of the entire ecosystem.

ETC supporters believe that ETH’s strategy of pursuing public chains and smart contracts is wrong, and they hope that ETC can take a more cautious and conservative approach.

Arvicco said:

ETH simplifies the code to make it easier for JS developers to use, but usually at the expense of security. The DAO attack was not without warning - in this highly monetized platform where investors' funds are stored, ETH's attitude of "desperate for rapid development" has already attracted a lot of dangerous signals. ETC developers pay more attention to system security and code accuracy.

Recently, a new development team of ETC made its debut, and the developers said they would develop a fully tested system model for ETC.

Arvicco said:

When you are designing a monetary program, you better ensure that the code is 100% accurate.