Separation commonly exists when parties belonging to a group couldn't agree on one thing. This decision is the result of the existence of the Ethereum Classic(ETC). For us to quickly understand what an ETC is and its value, we need to backtrack on the event that shook the crypto world in the spring of 2016.
The Ethereum Classic story begins with a series of theft that rocked the community to its core. How did it happen? It all started when DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) suffered from a "51% attack" by an anonymous individual or group who found flaws in its structure.
DAO is a blockchain-enable organization which appears to be appealing to the investors for its transparency and the voting system in which members will have the power to choose which proposal should it support. DAO established a record for accumulating the highest crowdfunding gains in history which occurred in May of 2016.
At the end of its crowdfunding period, DAO exceeded more than the expectation of its creators for registering a staggering amount of 150 Million USD.
By June of 2016, the unknown hacker managed to stash about 30% of DAO's fund amounting 70M USD at the time, which the organization has accumulated during the crowdfunding period.
The community was separated whether to re-write its blockchain transactions history where the hacking occurs through a Hard Fork or stick with it and find a better solution to stop the attacker from cashing out what they hacked.
Majority of the community agreed with blockchain Hard Fork proposal by VItalik Buterin whom the founder and the CEO of what we know now as ETH, the world's second most valuable cryptocurrency asset in terms of market capitalization behind Bitcoin.
Although many agreed for the Hard Fork as the solution, few members from the community have argued that a blockchain should stick to its original purpose, and transaction history should be immutable, and never to be changed regardless of any circumstances.
Led by talented crypto-idealist, and few supporters who disagreed with Buterin's solution, the original blockchain survived which is now known as Ethereum Classic.
With the market capitalization of $870,319,039, the current price of 7.79 against USD, standing at 20th place in the chart, and several active dapps using it by the time of writing, some are still surprised with the survival of the Ethereum classic's blockchain.
Few developers are contributing to its development, and the supporters are continuing to grow. With its upcoming update (Atlantis Hard Fork) to improve its security, many speculate and eyeing for it as a good investment.
Although ETH appears to dominate ETC in many aspects as of today, ETC is still definitely alive, and many still consider for its growth.
Bitcoin has flaws as well, which resulted in a loss of investors money in the past, but yet, BTC still survives and remains the number one.
We have to appreciate the people who stand behind the original concept of the blockchain which is decentralized, immutable, and unstoppable, and that's what drives the Ethereum classic's existence.
