Ethereum Classic Price Spikes As The Merge Approaches, Can ETC Rally Further?

The birth of the Ethereum Classic (ETC) was terrific. In the summer of 2016, a hard fork was used to address one of Ethereum's most notorious hacks, the DAO hack. This event split the chain into two factions and created a new crypto asset called Ethereum Classic.

With The Merge coming up, speculators assume that Ethash PoW miners will transition to Ethereum classic mining. For years, both chains have co-existed using the same proof of work (PoW) consensus algorithm. The price of Ethereum Classic has shot up more than 124% in the last two weeks, and its network's hash rate is spiking too.

Ethereum Classic Catches Triple-Digit Gains During the Last Two Weeks

Ethereum Classic (ETC) has been on a wild ride since the penciled-in date for The Merge was revealed. Since then, its value and Ethereum's increased significantly as both saw massive gains in the last two weeks. 

The Ethereum Classic (ETC) has seen an impressive 124% rise in two weeks, compared to ETH's 45.7% gain. However, despite its recent success ETC is still down 34%, compared to crypto's all-time high at $167 per unit – meaning there's plenty more room left for growth.

As of recently, more and more Ethereum miners have been switching over to mining ETC. The ETC network's hash rate has increased by about 20% over the past few weeks, likely due to the Merge being announced. It was at 17.39 terahash per second, and now it is at 20.88 terahash per second.

The ETC network hit a high this week at 21.41 TH/s and is nearing the record of 28.53 TH/s it set last year May. With the hash rate going up at such an impressive rate, it's possible that Ethereum Classic could surpass its all-time high soon.

Korean Won Represents More Than 20% of Ethereum Classic Trades.

The average fees for Ethereum Classic are much lower than Ethereum. For example, the current cost to send one transaction via ETH is 0.002 ETH or $3.31 as it stands today, whereas ETC's equivalent would be just 0.000096 ETC or $0.0031.

Tether is the largest trading pair for ETC, as it captures 59% of all trades today. Following close behind at 20% comes Korea's Korean Won and then the U.S. dollar, which accounts for 7%.84%.

The data shows that 11.53% of the volume on Bithumb stems from ETC trades, while 22.96% comes through in KRW against Upbit's Won. In terms of decentralized finance (defi), the Ethereum Classic network is way behind the eightball in defi development.

Ethereum's blockchain is by far the most valuable, with $56.62 billion in total locked up (TVL). That's more than 65% of the $87.56 billion locked across the myriad of blockchains that support defi protocols. Ethereum Classic's small size means it doesn't have much in the way of TVL, with only $175k on July 27.

Ethereum (ETH) has the largest value locked out of all the blockchains today, with a $56.62 billion total value locked (TVL). That's more than 65% of the $87.56 billion locked across the myriad of blockchains that support defi protocols. Meanwhile, Ethereum Classic has a very small TVL, with only $175,483 on July 27, according to defillama.com statistics.

There's a total of three ETC Defi applications compared to Ethereum's 523 protocols. Over 92% of the value locked in ETC defi applications is held on the Hebeswap, an automated token exchange. The rest of ETC's Defi TVL, or a mere $12,366, is held on Etcswap and Swap Cat.

If miners continue to find value in ETC's PoW security, it is possible that ETC-based defi protocols and smart contract applications could see more development. ETC also has a supply cap set at 210,700,000, while Ethereum's supply is infinite. Today, 136,026,596 ETC is currently in circulation, meaning there are only 74,673,404 ETC left to mine.

Ethereum (ETH) network and community are much more extensive than Ethereum Classic (ETC) ecosystem in various ways. Regarding market capitalization, ETH is a behemoth compared to ETC. ETH, the second-largest crypto asset by market cap, represents 17.7% of the $1 trillion crypto economy with $193.36 billion. On the other hand, ETC represents 0.402% of the crypto economy's value, with $4.39 billion today.