ETC Meaning. Altcoins: What Is Ethereum Classic (ETC)? How Has Ethereum Classic Price Changed?


Summary:
Read next: Altcoins: Yearn.Finance (YFI), What Is It - A Deeper Look Into The Yearn.Finance Platform
The Ethereum Classic platform exists in response to the contract censorship that exists on sister chain Ethereum. Ethereum Classic has managed to resist censorship against all odds, and has managed to deliver Ethereum's original vision of unstoppable applications.
Ethereum Classic's main function is a smart contract network that has the ability to host and support decentralised applications (DApps). Ethereum Classic’s native token is ETC. Since its launch, Ethereum Classic strives to differentiate itself from Ethereum, and over time has succeeded as its roadmap is diverging further and further apart with time.
Ethereum Classic combines the technology of Ethereum with Bitcoin’s philosophy, Ethereum Classic is uniquely placed perfectly to be the smart contract platform of the future, as other chains can become compromised or captured by special interests.
Ethereum Classic has a market capitalization of more than $1.9 billion, a current circulating supply of more than 135 million ETC tokens, the ETC tokens are capped at 210.700 million.
The Ethereum Classic blockchain is secured using the proof-of-work (PoW) network, however the blockchain has faced regular attacks due to its minority status. These attacks include several 51% attacks to gain control of mining hashrate and execute spurious transactions and double spend coins, the most recent one occurred in August 2020.
ETC is a major market cap cryptocurrency and it is freely tradeable on many major exchanges. Pairs are available through other cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies and stablecoins whilst derivatives and institutional investment vehicles also exist on the platform. It is possible to purchase ETC through Ethereum, Binance and OKEx to name a few.
After the launch of the Ethereum Classic network, the price rose almost immediately, the first spike in price that occurred towards the end of 2018 and saw the price go above $40, and was followed by a gradual but relatively substantial decline. Since the first peak in 2018 the price took more than 3 years to take off again, in June of 2021 ETC reached its highest price yet, reaching above the $125 level. Since its price peak in 2021, the price of ETC has been gradually declining.
Over the past few months, the markets have been facing strong investor risk-off sentiment in the wake of the geopolitical tensions, Covid-19 lockdowns in China and supply chain issues. The cryptocurrency market has followed the trends of the greater market during these times, therefore the price of most cryptocurrencies have been falling, yearn.finance falls under this category.
According to some analysts the future price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) could reach up to $62 by 2026 and could see a price of around $176 by 2030. However, it is important to remember that this future price prediction is based solely on data and does not take into account factors such as investor sentiment and the ever changing market conditions, both of which make it difficult to make accurate future price predictions.

ETC Price Chart
It should be kept in mind that ETC isn't primarily a payment mode but a decentralised blockchain that enables the creation of programmable applications and contracts
Sources: trading-education.com, finance.yahoo.com, coinmarketcap.com, ethereumclassic.org, cryptonewsz.com