Ethereum Surges, but Ethereum Classic Up Much More on Merge Anticipation
Much ado has been made of the recent news that the upcoming Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) merge will take place on or around Sept. 19. This catalyst has continued to propel the value of Ethereum higher, with the world's second-largest cryptocurrency appreciating 3.4% over the past 24 hours as of 11:30 a.m. ET.
However, the token many Ethereum enthusiasts are really focusing on right now is Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC). The "original" fork of the Ethereum blockchain is up 10.9% over this same 24-hour period and has absolutely skyrocketed over the past week. The seven-day return for this token stands at 77%, which far exceeds Ethereum's (still not shabby) 41% weekly return.
Ethereum Classic was formed initially out of a dispute among crypto miners in years past. Essentially, various major upgrades require the approval of all validators on a network. If a number of nodes dissent with the direction an upgrade will take a given project, and fail to upgrade their software accordingly, a fork can take place in which the blockchain is split in two different directions.
Source Fool.com
