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What is Ethereum Classic and why is it important to traders?
Ethereum Classic is a decentralised blockchain-based platform designed for executing smart contracts. This is a distributed network, which consists of a blockchain ledger, robust ecosystem of applications and services and its native cryptocurrency – ETC coin.
Ethereum Classic hosts an extended and constantly growing collection of decentralised applications and protocols. They are programmed to run without downtime, third-party interference and any censorship. ETC Classic provides the opportunity to manage digital assets without intermediaries, including financial institutions and banks.
ETC Cryptocurrency is the continuation of the original Ethereum chain. The split was the direct result of a hack on Ethereum’s Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) in 2015 that resulted in the theft of 11.5 million ethers, or around $50 million.
As a result of the Ethereum’s hard fork, Ethereum Classic was born. From now on Ethereum Classic (ETC) is completely independent from Ethereum (ETH) and acts separately.
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Ethereum Classic trading hours
You can trade Ethereum Classic CFDs on Capital.com 24/7.
How to invest in Ethereum Classic CFDs
An individual has two options when investing in Ethereum Classic in the cryptocurrency market. Firstly, they can buy actual cryptocurrency on exchanges, such as buying Ethereum Classic on an exchange like Bitfinex, so they own the Ethereum Classic coin itself. This is considered a long-term investment, as the individual is waiting for the price to rise significantly, so they can sell their crypto coins on an exchange.
Alternatively, they can trade a contract for difference (CFD) on Ethereum Classic crypto, and speculate on its price difference. A CFD is a financial instrument, which is a contract, typically between a broker and an investor, where one party agrees to pay the other the difference in the value of a security, between the opening and closing of the trade.
You can either hold a long position (speculating that the price will rise) or a short position (speculating that the price will fall). This is considered a short-term investment as CFDs are used within shorter timeframes. For instance, to trade Ethereum Classic CFDs, you can speculate on the ETC/BTC pairing.
Trade Ethereum Classic to Bitcoin - ETC/BTC CFD
There are pivotal differences between buying a cryptocurrency and trading a CFD in a crypto market. When buying cryptocurrency, it is stored in a wallet, but when trading CFDs the product is stored in your account, which is regulated by a financial authority. You are more liquid when you purchase CFDs because you are not tied to the asset, you have merely purchased the underlying contract. As well as this, CFDs are a more established and regulated financial product.
Trade Ethereum Classic CFDs with Capital.com. Sign up at Capital.com to use our desktop platform, or download our mobile app to start trading on the most popular global markets anywhere, anytime.
Why trade Ethereum Classic CFDs with Capital.com
Advanced AI technology at its core: A Facebook-like News Feed provides users with personalised and unique content depending on their preferences. If a trader makes decisions based on biases, the innovative News Feed offers a range of materials to put him back on the right track. The neural network analyses in-app behaviour and recommends videos, articles, news to polish your investment strategy.
Trading on margin: Providing trading on margin (up to 2:1 for cryptocurrencies), Capital.com gives you access to the cryptocurrency market with the help of CFDs.
Trading the difference: When you invest in Ethereum Classic through a CFD, you don’t buy the underlying asset itself, meaning you are not tied to it. You only speculate on the rise or fall of the Ethereum Classic price. CFD trading is nothing different from traditional trading in terms of strategies. A CFD investor can go short or long, set stop and limit losses and apply trading scenarios that align with his or her objectives.
All-round trading analysis: The browser-based platform allows traders to shape their own market analysis and forecasts with sleek technical indicators. Capital.com provides live market updates and various chart formats, available on desktop, iOS, and Android.
Focus on safety: Capital.com puts a special emphasis on safety. Licensed by the FCA and CySEC, it complies with all regulations and ensures that its clients’ data security comes first. The company allows to withdraw money 24/7 and keeps traders’ funds across segregated bank accounts.
Ethereum Classic price history
Ethereum was launched in 2015 as an open-source and blockchain-based decentralised platform with its own cryptocurrency, called Ether. The main purpose of the network is to enable smart contracts and distributed applications (DApps) that can be developed by third parties. Presenting its key purpose, Ehtereum mentions that it allows everyone to “codify, decentralise, secure and trade just about anything”.
Ethereum Classic originated as a result of Ethereum's hard fork and its cryptocurrency is ETC, instead of ETH. After the theft of $50 million worth of Ether from the original Ethereum blockchain, a hard fork was aimed to return the stolen Ether to their owners.
However, not all the developers agreed with such a solution, believing that the blockchain should not be altered. They continued mining the original Ethereum, which was afterwards renamed as Ethereum Classic. Both projects share the same purposes and offer similar features. The major divergence lies in interventionist and anti-interventionist ethics.
By the end of May 2020, Ethereum Classic was ranked 19th on the crypto market cap table on CoinMarketCap with the market capitalisation of $740.294 million and $1.42 billion in trade volume over the last 24 hours.
Ethereum Classic is approaching its Phoenix hard fork, planned for June 2020. This critical upgrade is aimed to make ETC blockchain compatible with ETH’s most recent update known as Istanbul. The developers believe the Phoenix upgrade will enable interoperability between ETC and ETH.
At the moment of writing, the ETC/USD spot price is traded at $6.366, which is 106.5 per cent lower than its 52 weeks high of $13.148. The ETC’s all-time high of $44.34 happened in January 2018.
With no signs of returning to its glory days so far, Ethereum Classic is extremely volatile, which provides huge potential for speculation. Stay tuned to the latest cryptomarket news, which can drive ETC price movement. Track the performance of the top-20 cryptocurrencies live and trade Ethereum Classic CFDs with Capital.com.
FAQ
Storing Ethereum Classic: What is a wallet? Why do I need it to store cryptocurrency?
Before buying Ethereum Classic, you will need a place to store it. This is what a wallet is for, and it consists of two elements: a private key and a public address. A wallet requires a private key, specific to the individual, that enables access to the Ethereum Classic address stored in the wallet, which is also the public key.
The wallet is what enables Ethereum classic, or any cryptocurrency, to be a secure medium of exchange. Essentially, people can send ETC – Ethereum Classic – to certain wallets using the public key, which only the individual can access with their private key. Some individuals choose to keep their coins in their wallet provided by their cryptocurrency exchange, due to the fact that a lot of exchanges have mobile apps that allow people to easily buy, sell and spend cryptocurrencies.
What are the dangers of storing cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrency exchanges or online wallets are far from immune to the dangers of cybertheft. The infamous case of the Mt Gox Bitcoin exchange highlights this. Historically, Mt Gox was the largest global exchange for Bitcoin, until it declared bankruptcy in 2014 after its security had been compromised.
Mt Gox had 850,000 Bitcoins, valued at $450 million in February 2014, before their exchange was emptied by hackers. It is believed that the private keys of Mt Gox’s digital wallet were stolen from as earlier as 2011. These risks are avoided when trading Ethereum Classic cryptocurrency with CFDs because you do not need a wallet as you do not own the asset itself.
Is there a bubble in the cryptocurrency market?
A ‘bubble’, in market terminology, is where the price of an asset far exceeds its intrinsic value. For instance, the dot-com bubble that occurred between 1995 and 2001, is a prime example, where information technology industry firms saw their stocks rise, merely because of the market sentiment around that particular industry, irrespective of their profits or chances of succeeding. This market then crashed in March 2000.
The problem here is that it is hard to determine the value of cryptocurrency to begin with. Although a lot of investors are holding cryptocurrencies as if they were equities, they are not. Yet they do not particularly act like currencies either, which makes comparisons to currency valuations difficult. However, with any new technology, caution is advised. It could well be the case that the valuations of Bitcoin or Ethereum Classic are not overvalued, and that the bubble, if there is one, is represented by the various new cryptocurrencies that are being driven by market sentiment. Arguably, this is comparable to the dot-com instance, where stocks like Amazon were not overvalued, but others like Pets.com, which went from IPO to liquidation in 268 days, clearly were. So, it seems that only time will tell whether the market is overheating, but in either case, there are options to trade using CFDs to take both long and short positions.
From late 2017 to early 2018, there was a surge in the price of Bitcoin (reaching $20,000 per Bitcoin), followed shortly behind by other cryptocurrencies. The market then crashed between January and February 2018, and Bitcoin free fell, dropping 65% in value. Consequently, most other cryptocurrencies crashed as well. So there clearly was a bubble in the crypto market. The question that this begs is whether there still is one. The value in most cryptocurrencies is derived from their potential; how they could be used to advance society in the future. Without institutional acceptance however, the potential value, will remain merely potential, but whether this implies that cryptocurrencies are overvalued is another question.