IntroductionΒΆ
Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the most exciting technology today. It promises to upend governments, the financial industry, supply chain management and much more. The marriage of ETC with the Internet of Things is a game changer. Some think ETC may replace the World Wide Web!
ETC is composed of the world computer and database. The ETC world computer is also referred to as the ETC virtual machine. The ETC world database is also referred to as the ETC blockchain. These two components have several noteworthy properties:
- censorship resistance
- It is virtually impossible to stop the execution of code or to deny access to information.
- security
- Security is built in with cryptography.
- pseudonymity
- Users are anonymous except for pseudonyms.
- openness
- All the software is open source, and, all the activity for all time is available for inspection.
- reliability
- It is always available and virtually impossible to shut down.
- trustlessness
- There is no need to rely on any single person or entity.
All of these properties, except trustlessness, are possible without blockchain technology. For example, consider a web server securely configured with several identical backup servers geographically distributed. Suppose these web servers were only accessible using onion routing. This setup can provide significant censorship resistance, security, pseudonymity, openness and reliability. Note however how much effort is required. With ETC, these properties are present by default!
Because ETC is trustless, no one has special powers. Therefore, it is possible to implement extremely sensitive applications on ETC such as financial and identity services.
Final note, everyone effectively runs their applications on the same single computer, the ETC world computer. However, this virtual computer is actually implemented by a worldwide network of computers. All the computers in the network run all applications in parallel. This extreme redundancy is a main reason the ETC world computer has its amazing properties.