In this article I am going to list some suggestions for Ethereum Classic (ETC) developers and ecosystem participants to focus on when promoting and selling the benefits of ETC.
Ethereum Classic Features
The starting point is to define what is ETC so then the potential user types and use cases may be identified.
1. It Is the Original Ethereum
The phrase “it is the original Ethereum” or “it is the original chain” has no meaning other than describing a sort of collectable or an appeal to “sentimental value” as some ignorant journalists have commented.
It is important for ETC promoters to understand that the true meaning of this phrase is that ETC has followed a clean and trust minimized protocol, with no interruption, and absolutely respecting money, property, and agreements on the blockchain since the genesis block.
Ethereum, the forked chain, is a tampered history where trusted individuals manually changed the history and its policies frequently.
The original chain means “code is law” and true immutability.
2. A Programmable Store of Value
ETC is widely and successfully used as a store of value across the world.
Being a store of value is the first component of ETC. As a smart contracts layer on top of proof of work based Nakamoto consensus, ETC is programmable digital gold.
This makes it completely suitable as a savings and long term financial planning asset that will help savers and treasury managers globally to protect the value of their wealth for long ranges of time, no matter the local circumstances.
3. A Proof of Work Based Nakamoto Consensus and Fully Replicated Blockchain
As the great majority of smart contracts blockchain networks have sought performance and scalability, ETC has remained as the only top smart contracts platform that preserved the fundamental innovation of the industry: Nakamoto consensus.
The other feature that it has preserved, which differentiates ETC from the other competitors, is full replication.
It is a fundamental safety feature of blockchains to be completely replicated in 100% of the nodes of the network on a global scale.
This not only ensures security in the form of redundancy maximization, but also in trust minimization as nodes do not have to consult to other nodes through insecure gadgets the state of the network.
Full replication is full verification, a key basic right only guaranteed by true Cypherpunk blockchains.
That it has and will always preserve proof of work based Nakamoto consensus and full replication is a key differentiator of ETC.
4. Will Be a Base Layer Large Value Settlements System
Because of its “code is law” and immutability ethos, ETC has deliberately traded off transaction scalability for security.
As all the other systems have done exactly the opposite, ETC is perfectly positioned to be a highly secure, high value, low volume, settlements system.
Low computing scalability, but high security, actually makes ETC more scalable as it is socially scalable globally, whereas the proof of stake systems may only serve permissioned markets and segments.
ETC, through multiple layer 2 systems in multiple regions of the world, may actually reach and serve many more people and organizations than the high performance networks.
In other words, pure social scalability greatly expands its total addressable market, serviceable addressable market, and share of market (TAM, SAM, and SOM).
Business Development Roadmap
With the above features in mind, there are several target users and use cases that Ethereum Classic entrepreneurs and developers should focus on to maximize their return on investment and maximize ETC’s market share and value.
The following roadmap is a list of user types and use cases that may serve as a plan when designing, building, and promoting products on Ethereum Classic.
1. Individuals and Families: Store of Value and Investment
Thinking of the younger generations; ETC is for paying the kids’ education in 20 years, traveling the world and having a comfortable retirement in 40 years, and passing wealth to descendants and beneficiaries in 80 years.
ETC is an asset that will help millions, if not billions, achieve their financial goals, and thus their dreams for themselves, their loved ones, and their communities.
Developers and entrepreneurs should pay attention and think of products and services for these segments, either directly on ETC, e.g. dapps for high net worth individuals, or through layer 2 systems and providers, e.g. dapps for retail segments.
2. Proof of Stake Blockchains
As proof of stake blockchains will discover their systems may be scalable in terms of transactions per second, but not in terms of addressable markets, they will tend to seek the security of ETC by anchoring their states and using monetary services from Ethereum Classic to expand their reach.
Projects as ETH 2.0, Cardano, Polkadot, Internet Computer, EOS, Tezos, TRON, BNB, and others will inexorably seek this security in ETC because it is EVM compatible, transparent, and easy to work on.
In other words, those projects are layer 2 systems that will connect to ETC as a base layer blockchain.
Ethereum Classic engineers and business developers should already be talking and selling these ideas to these teams, no matter how early or ridiculed they may feel.
It is a matter of time until this value is discovered by the industry, and ETC participants must promote and be prepared to execute partnerships and integrations as from now.
3. L3 and L4 Systems
Pure scaling solutions as channels and rollups, as well as dapps and wallets, may use ETC directly.
As long as they adapt their systems to lower volumes but higher values per transaction, and likely higher fees per transaction, they can perfectly integrate, build, and provide high value services to segmented users.
In other words, they will use ETC as their base settlements layer.
4. Governments
They will use ETC as a store of value and for large value transfers between nations, states, provinces, local government, or ministries, and for payments of debt and large government programmes.
ETC will flatten flows and increase transparency between government layers and administrative divisions.
5. Central Banks
They will use ETC to store long term reserves and to gradually replace their Real Time Settlements Systems (RTGS).
ETC offers much higher guarantees and finality.
Programmability is a great value added central banks may offer to their member institutions and for trust minimized interactions with other central banks from other nations.
6. Supranational Organizations
They will use ETC to store reserves and execute multilateral agreements with member nations.
ETC’s programmability will be key for these arrangements.
7. Banking
They will use ETC to issue all sorts of securities and derivatives and to settle large value transactions.
ETC will be the settlements layer of new payments systems and retail services provided through financial institutions, such as asset management, insurance, deposit and lending, wallet services, and other consumer products.
It is very likely regulations will loosen up and permit banks from remote regions to service customers from all other regions. Banking will not have to pass through New York, Shanghai, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong or Tokyo anymore.
As ETC stores the smart contracts in its highly secure environment, and they are in plain sight for the world to audit, banking products from all financial services will be equally transparent and their economic security and relative benefits will be easy to assess.
8. Multinational Corporations
They will use ETC to establish and execute large value contracts with suppliers and clients.
Cash flows and agreements will execute automatically based on delivery confirmations, port arrivals, and value chain physical progression.
Spreadsheets will be easily transformed into smart contracts and deployed to ETC.
Transactional costs will be greatly reduced due to the streamlining of these processes and easy auditability.
9. Teams and Small Businesses
Teams and small businesses will use ETC to manage their treasury, capital, shareholder registry, execute contracts, and to use high value dapps and services from best in class providers listed above, regardless of their region or origin.
Conclusion
Due to its design choices and the strong principles of its core ecosystem, Ethereum Classic has a huge opportunity in front of its eyes. All the rest is occupied by lower order systems.
It’s up to the players and participants in ETC to live up to and deliver on its promise.
Code Is Law
