Ethereum Classic (comparison — not a Bitcoin fork)ETC
Comparison article — Ethereum Classic is NOT a Bitcoin fork. It is the unaltered Ethereum chain after the 2016 DAO hard fork, included because its split mirrors Bitcoin's fork debates.
Not a Bitcoin fork: the original Ethereum chain that kept running when the Ethereum Foundation's July 2016 hard fork reversed the DAO theft, included here as a comparison case for “code is law”.
The wiki's angle: ETC is the cleanest outside test of the Bitcoin fork argument — the chain that refused to rewrite history kept the old rules, and on the show Bob Summerwill called its ethos “Bitcoin philosophy, Ethereum technology”.[8][1]
Contents
Not a Bitcoin fork
Ethereum Classic does not descend from Bitcoin's code or chain: it continues the Ethereum mainnet, first released via Frontier on 30 July 2015[1]. This wiki includes it only as a comparison, because the 2016 split turned on a question Bitcoin's forks keep raising — whether a chain's history can be changed by social agreement[1].
The DAO
Wikipedia's article on The DAO says an attacker used a vulnerability to transfer “3.6 million Ether - around a third of the 11.5 million Ether that had been committed to The DAO”, then worth about $50 million[2]. On 20 July 2016 the Ethereum Foundation released a new version of mainnet with what Wikipedia calls an “irregular state change” that erased the theft; the unaltered chain continued as Ethereum Classic, and block 1,920,000 was the first ETC block not in the forked chain[1].
Code is law
Wikipedia says supporters argue that blockchain immutability is paramount and that code should be treated as final (“code is law”), while opponents including the Ethereum Foundation contended that recovering stolen DAO funds “was justified to preserve user trust”[1]. On Bitcoin Takeover, Vlad summarised the split as a choice between “deciding that code is law” and “hard forking to return the money to the investors”[3]. Bob Summerwill described the minority as the “typical cypherpunk original mindset” and the fork as “an irregular state transition” rather than a rewind of blocks[4][5].
Later history
Wikipedia records a series of 51% attacks on Ethereum Classic in 2020, followed by the ETChash (Thanos) change to its mining algorithm, and says that after Ethereum's move to proof of stake in 2022 ETC became the largest smart contract platform secured by proof of work[1]. Bob Summerwill said on the show that Grayscale fund fees supported the ETC Cooperative, of which he was later executive director for six years[6]. He also described EthereumPoW, a proof-of-work fork of Ethereum at its move to proof of stake, promoted by Chandler Guo, as “blatantly a cash grab”[7].
Bitcoin parallels
Summerwill said the ETC community saw its ethos as “Bitcoin philosophy, Ethereum technology”[8]. In the same episode he described the BIP-110 chain grinding to a halt, a Bitcoin fork debate discussed in Bitcoin Knots[9].
Heard on Bitcoin Takeover
In the show's first episode (S1 E1, remastered August 2026), Donald McIntyre said: “I work for Ethereum Classic, which is the original Ethereum. Ethereum, without the term classic after it, is the fork of Ethereum Classic.”[10]
References
- secondaryWikipedia, “Ethereum Classic” [archived]
- secondaryWikipedia, “The DAO” [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Vlad on the DAO split and “code is law”▶ listen at 2:20timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill on the DAO schism and immutability▶ listen at 16:08timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill — the fork was an irregular state transition▶ listen at 26:48timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill on Barry Silbert, Grayscale and the ETC Cooperative▶ listen at 43:43timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill on EthereumPoW and Chandler Guo▶ listen at 2:36:16timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill — “Bitcoin philosophy, Ethereum technology”▶ listen at 46:08timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E42: Bob Summerwill — the BIP-110 chain ground to a halt▶ listen at 38:26timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS1 E1: Donald McIntyre on Ethereum Classic▶ listen at 1:35:23timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]