In 2016, the Ethereum-based asset DAO was hacked, resulting in a loss of $150 million. To recover the funds, a hard fork was executed, splitting Ethereum into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum Classic gained support from those who opposed the hard fork, valuing the blockchain’s immutability, and maintained its original name and ETH ticker symbol, attracting investor interest.
In 2022, Ethereum’s “The Merge” transitioned the network from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS). Miners seeking to continue their activities migrated to ETC. At the time of writing, ETC was trading at $28.52, having surged over 41% following the approval of a Bitcoin ETF, although it still lagged significantly behind ETH.
The positive market sentiment after the Bitcoin ETF decision led to optimistic predictions by artificial intelligence and algorithms. CoinCodex’s machine learning algorithm forecasted a continued rally for ETC, predicting a price of $44.41 by January 31.
The algorithm suggested a potential 50% increase in Ethereum Classic’s price over the next 20 days and indicated the possibility of even higher levels before January 31, with potential trading prices exceeding $53.
Understanding Ethereum Classic’s structure is crucial for predicting price movements. The altcoin hosts a lower hashrate and a smaller Web3 ecosystem compared to Ethereum, and it still faces security risks and lower adoption rates, which are significant barriers to its growth in the competitive cryptocurrency market.