​Cardano founder calls Ethereum Classic a “scam”

What’s new? Cardano blockchain founder and Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson said that the Ethereum Classic (ETC) project is a “scam” with “no roadmap, innovation, team, or vision.” “It’s just anger and toxicity,” is how the developer characterized the current state of ETC in comments to the announcement of Proof-of-Work Summit 2023, which will feature speakers Bob Summerwill and Donald Mcintyre, members of the non-profit organization, ETC Cooperative.

ETC is now a scam and it's only purpose is for insiders to dump on those they recruit with blind hope of some magical future that will never come. There is no roadmap, innovation, team, or vision. It's just anger and toxicity. The Twitter account was built up from years of effort…

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 19, 2023

Details about the situation. According to Cardano’s founder, the only purpose of Ethereum Classic at the moment is to provide an opportunity “for insiders to dump on those they recruit with blind hope of some magical future that will never come.”

Hoskinson joined the discussion after Summerwill reported that the Ergo smart contract platform’s speakers would not be present at the summit. One Twitter user noted that the absence of the Ergo representatives would not allow for a comprehensive assessment of the capabilities and prospects of projects on the Proof of Work (POW) consensus algorithm. Summerwill responded by citing a conflict with Ergo representatives.

So, the original ETC Twitter account with more than 600 000 followers belongs to Hoskinson, and as a result of a conflict with the developers of the project in February of this year, it was transferred to Ergo, which, according to Summerwill, “stripped Ethereum Classic of one of its most valuable social media assets.” As a result, ETC had to start a new account, which currently does not have even 6000 subscribers.

The conflict between ETC Cooperative and Hoskinson began in 2018 and culminated in September 2021, when Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), later involved in the creation of the Cardano blockchain, withdrew from the project over a disagreement over the operation of its treasury replenishment and spending mechanism.

In September 2021, the @ETCCooperative withdrew support for @InputOutputHK's proposed 20% in-protocol treasury, which led to IOHK withdrawing from the ETC community for the second time. The first time was in December 2018, again after treasury rejected.https://t.co/83YUFYWH6X

— Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) October 6, 2022

During the current discussion, Summerwill stated: “The ETC community spent 6 years building our twitter account to over 600K users and Ergo then ditched their own 60K follower account to squat on stolen goods from Charles <Hoskinson — ed.>. Now ETC Cooperative is organizing a conference and you think Ergo should be welcome?” In response, one of the participants in the discussion stated that discrimination against an entire community due to the actions of several people and their control over an account in social networks has nothing to do with the principles of decentralization.

Hoskinson, for his part, said that the ETC Twitter account was actually devolved through years of effort by the Input Output team, and it would be unethical “to inflict upon those followers a project that is now a scam.”

“Ergo is what ETC should have been and continues to innovate, has a purpose, good ethical leadership, and funding for the future,” Hoskinson summed up.

What is known about ETC? The cryptocurrency ETC appeared in 2016 as a result of disagreement with the Ethereum Foundation’s decision to hard fork the network to roll back the blockchain until The DAO project was hacked to compensate affected users for their losses. Members of the Ethereum community united around the cryptocurrency and the “original” blockchain, who rejected the main network’s hard fork for ideological reasons. As of May 22, 12:00 UTC, the asset ranks 27th in the cryptocurrency ranking with a capitalization of $2,55 billion and is trading at $18,06 on Binance, down by 1% in 24 hours.

What is known about Cardano? It is a blockchain platform created by Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) and Hoskinson in 2017. Cardano supports smart contracts, the native token ADA that enables participation in the network’s operation. ADA ranks 7th in market capitalization at $12,95 billion and is trading at $0,386 (+2%).

Hoskinson had already criticized ETC last September, calling it a “dead project” that had not lived up to its potential: “ETC still gives me sadness for what could have been. It’s a dead project with no purpose or real compelling argument to exist outside of spite.”