According to Donald McIntyre of Etherplan, the price of ETC (Ethereum Classic) could rise to $33,000 in 2029.
Summary
ETC is the original protocol of Ethereum
He revealed this in a recently published video in which he says that as early as 2021 it could rise to $1,000, to $8,700 in 2024 and finally to $33,000 in 2029.
Today, the price of ETC is around $45, a far cry from the $167 recorded at the beginning of May, which is currently its all-time high.
In other words, ETC is now 72% lower than its peak a few months ago, whereas ETH is only 33% lower.
Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the original protocol of Ethereum, from which the fork currently called Ethereum (ETH) was born in 2016 as a response to a hacker attack.
The supply is more or less the same, with 130 million ETC in circulation compared to 117 million ETH, but with a far lower market capitalization. Ethereum Classic does not reach $6 billion, while ETH exceeds 340, which is 57 times as much.
Given the price trend of ETC in 2021, it is actually very difficult to imagine it reaching $1,000 by the end of the year.
It would mean a parabolic rise of 2,000% in three months, and still a six-fold increase from the all-time highs in May.
McIntyre argues that as ETC is discovered by the market, developers will also begin to discover its use cases. However, being very similar to Ethereum, it’s strange that developers haven’t already discovered them until now.
Compared to ETH, ETC will retain Proof of Work
The main difference with ETH will be the fact that ETC will retain Proof of Work (PoW), while ETH will switch to Proof-of-Stake, which is considered less secure and therefore riskier. However, the switch will not take place before 2022, so for now there is no difference, except for the much lower fees of ETC compared to the high fees of ETH.
When the switch to PoS happens, Ethereum Classic will remain the leading blockchain with native PoW-based smart contracts, and its proponents say this will give it a momentous advantage.
According to McIntyre, this will open up a space in the market that will be occupied by ETC.
To be fair, with the evolutions of Bitcoin, and in particular the second layers, sooner or later complex smart contracts will also arrive, although they will not run on blockchain.
McIntyre’s predictions on ETC price
Ethereum Classic has a hard cap of 210 million ETC, which is somewhat similar in deflationary nature to Bitcoin, so McIntyre predicts that if BTC reaches $125,000 in 2021, then ETC will rise to $1,000.
He argues that ETC’s rally will follow those of BTC and ETH, and that ETC will overtake DOGE, BCH and LTC after Ethereum’s move to PoS.
Going forward, he predicts that bitcoin will reach a market capitalization of 50% of that of gold in 2025, and 100% in 2029, taking its price first to $259,000 and then to $550,000.
ETC is expected to reach a market capitalization equivalent to 25% that of bitcoin in 2025, and 50% in 2029, according to McIntyre.
It is worth noting that as of today ETC is only capitalizing 0.75% of bitcoin, and only 1.75% of ETH.
McIntyre’s predictions seem extremely optimistic, and quite possibly too much so.
