Those of us who have been involved in the crypto industry for some time, know the history behind Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum Classic is running on the original Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum had a hard fork when there was an attack on a smart contract called the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). On June 2016, the DAO was hacked, despite ample warning, using the same security flaws outlined in a paper exposing the security flaw and approximately $50 million dollars was stolen.
The hack brought about great Ethereum public debate as to how and handle the theft. As a result, a decision was made to fork Ethereum and restore the $50 million dollars worth of coins stolen. Those that feel that the whole point of cryptos and the blockchain is to have an immutable blockchain without any centralized decision making governance kept the original Ethereum blockchain. This original blockchain is called Ethereum Classic and it kept the DAO hack in tact but also has never forked from the original Ethereum genesis block one.
Fast forward to today. Ethereum (ETH) has been in steady second place in the global crypto market cap crypto listings. Bitcoin has always been in the #1 slot. Ethereum Classic is ranked #18 and has always had a strong top 20 presence. Over time, however, I believe Ethereum Classic will gain more market share and end up possibly being in the top 10 of all crypto currencies/tokens.
Why do I think this to be the case? Well, we will see many crypto currencies/tokens just fall by the way side. Interest will fade and the network effect will diminish. Most likely we will see a top 30 to 40 coins in tier 1. Tier 1 will be the most coveted cryptos. If you are going to run your corporation on a crypto blockchain, than you will want it to be on a tier 1 platform. Many companies will be looking at platform stability, strength of the code, governance and history of the blockchain. Ethereum classic has many of these criteria. They have bragging rights like Bitcoin and Litecoin in that they have original blockchains all the way back from Genesis block one without interruption or a hard fork. This stability will be impressive to those wanting to participate in a platform. No one likes a coin that has a history of changing blocks after the fact, especially if you are staking your corporations future on such a blockchain.
Time will tell which crypto currencies and tokens will be in tier 1 category. Tier 1 will be like the Fortune 100 of the old financial system that we have today. If we are lucky and hold some of the eventual tier 1 cryptos in our portfolio, we will be set financially. The best way that I know of how to guess which tokens will end up in tier 1 is the following. How established is the coin/token. Is it decentralized? If not, is there a benefit for centralization? How large is their network effect? Does the coin have any tarnished history or current concerns? Is the developing core consistent and continually producing updates and new features? Is there a fixed amount of coins/tokens? Has any government agency spoken negatively about the coin/token? What is the general view of the coin based on social media comments, blogs or videos?
Not that I have all or any of the answers, this is just thoughts that I use when evaluating cryptos. What are your thoughts? Do you think of an eventual tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 groupings of cryptos?
image from: oracletimes.com