ETC Proof of Work Why is ETC valuable?

Author: Donald McIntyre Source: Ethereum Classic Official Website Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

In previous articles, we compared Proof of Work (POW) and Proof of Stake (POS) from the perspective of censorship resistance and their regulatory status as commodities or securities.

This article will apply these ideas specifically to Ethereum Classic (ETC) to explain why it is valuable.

Given the history and current positioning of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, and the fact that ETC looks like a secondary chain, we will explain its advantages and why it should become one of the largest blockchains in the world.

The Core of ETC

Many people in the industry ask themselves, why is ETC valuable?

The core reason is that ETC is a POW blockchain with a fixed monetary policy that supports smart contracts in a highly secure environment.

This combination of properties makes ETC programmable digital gold.

Proof of Work is the only truly decentralized design that keeps a blockchain permissionless. As time goes by, this becomes more evident and we see censorship and instability in other systems.

A fixed monetary policy with a supply cap, combined with POW, makes ETC hard money, which in turn makes it digital gold like Bitcoin (BTC).

Smart contracts are the component that adds programmability and makes ETC unique.

ETC’s Secure Internal Environment

The above properties make ETC very attractive because applications can exist within its highly secure environment, rather than on the outside on an insecure connection.

For example, Bitcoin has solutions such as RSK and BitVM to add smart contracts to its system, but they are external devices and designs that can never achieve the security of having decentralized programs in its POW environment.

In ETC, there is a ledger of accounts and balances that supports the addition of smart contracts, thus making ETC a programmable currency, also known as "programmable digital gold."

ETC's Positioning

From the perspective of positioning, ETC is POW and has smart contracts, which is a very valuable positioning, because after Ethereum switched to proof of stake, ETC is still the world's largest POW programmable blockchain, that is, digital gold.

Excellent systems such as Bitcoin, DOGE, and Litecoin are all POW blockchains, but only support ledgers containing accounts and balances, so the most that can be done in their POW environment is to transfer coins from one address to another.

PoS smart contract networks like Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Cardano, Solana, etc. cannot match the security of PoW in ETC. This positions them as programmable blockchains, but they cannot be digital gold like ETC. They are better described as programmable community fiat currencies.

Why the market does not see the value of Ethereum Classic

The above reasons are why ETC has so much value, but the next question is, why does the market not see this?

The answer is because the Ethereum Foundation and ICO-funded PoS projects still have a lot of hype and funding.

These organizations and communities have the ability to continue to mislead the market, saying that PoS is more secure, more scalable, more innovative, it can save trees, and all these lies.

Unfortunately, this is how the world works today. Morality and truth are last, but opportunism and false information are first.

Time will tell which blockchains are truly decentralized

However, in the blockchain industry, the truth will eventually come out, as people will pay the cost of centralization with their wealth and fundamental rights.

At that time, ETC may be more widely recognized.

The combination of POW+digital gold+programmability has great value over time, and POS is centralized, so the ranking will be adjusted accordingly.

In a way, both POS and Proof of Authority (POA) systems are traps. People flock to them, invest their savings and use their dapps, but when they are locked in, governments may seize these networks, and then people will feel betrayed.

Only in a system like ETC is it possible not to comply with the coming technological tyranny.

Applications in Ethereum Classic Are the Most Secure in the World

So, since ETC is Bitcoin, but programmable, that affirms what we wrote in Lesson 16 of this course;

"In summary, Ethereum Classic is the environment in which the most secure applications in the world will exist, because it is a proof-of-work blockchain, and therefore truly decentralized; it has a fixed monetary policy, and therefore is sound money; and it is programmable, and therefore more versatile and secure than other alternatives.

In addition to these qualities, ETC is a fully replicated blockchain, which increases its security; is composable, reducing risk and settlement costs; and is the largest in the world designed with this combination!

These properties in the same integrated system provide the highest level of decentralization, and thus trust minimization, and thus security for any application hosted within it.”