ETC: THIS INDICATOR’S GROWTH PLACES THE ALT’S PRICE TARGET AT THIS RANGE

Ethereum Classic has been one of the year’s best performers, with the alt recording YTD returns of 1,247% at press time. That is an astonishing figure, especially since the alt, at the time, was 45% off of its 6 May level of $141. While like most altcoins ETC has profited from the general bullishness of Bitcoin and Ethereum this year, the rate of its appreciation has caught a lot of eyeballs.

What the same has also done is that it has fueled revisions in most people’s expected price targets for Ethereum Classic. Etherplan’s Donald McIntyre is one of them, with the proponent’s projection of $94 by the end of 2021 breached a while back on the back of ETH’s hike north of $3,000.

The founder of Etherplan was the latest guest on Patient Money this week, with the proponent commenting on a host of issues, including, the likelihood of more 51% attacks, ecosystem updates, ETC possibly playing ‘catch-up,’ and the revised price targets for Ethereum Classic.

According to McIntyre, despite ETC’s present position on the rankings chart (Ethereum Classic, at press time, was ranked 19th on CoinMarketCap), the altcoin is definitely a “top-10 blockchain,” with the proponent hopeful about the altcoin’s hike up the same over the next few years.

ETC’s lowly position, he said, was an anomaly and an exception, with McIntyre arguing that a host of 51% attacks in 2019 and 2020 contributed to the same. Will these incidents repeat themselves, however? Unlikely, the proponent said, adding that emergency upgrades and solutions such as NESS and ETC Hash adopted in 2020 have strengthened the security of the network over the past few months.

The latter, he added, “...reduced a little bit of the barriers for old machines to also mine in ETC and that increases the base of the machines who can mine ETC and increases the hash power.”

In fact, in time, proponents like McIntyre expect ETC to become as secure as ETH, especially if hash power continues to climb.

Etherplan’s founder also spoke about ETC’s adoption of “next-generation” SHA3, a globally accepted blockchain algorithm that is expected to make Ethereum Classic “much more palatable and acceptable for corporations, governments, and banks to use.”

Another aspect that is believed to be contributing to ETC’s renewed position on the charts is the market’s recognition of differentiated layers. This, McIntyre added, will fuel more acceleration in the next 4-8 years, especially since Digital Currency Group’s Barry Silbert remains ETC Cooperative’s biggest sponsor.

In light of all these developments, where might ETC head in the future? Both in the near term and the long term? Donald McIntyre proposed a valuation based on the current market cycle and Bitcoin’s market valuation, with respect to Gold’s expected market capitalization by the end of 2021 and 2025.

According to him, by the end of this cycle, the world’s largest cryptocurrency will be valued at around $125,693, despite recent price corrections. As for Ethereum Classic, however, thanks to its base layer growth alongside BTC, the alt will be valued at 5% of BTC’s valuation, placing the alt’s valuation at between $900 and $1,000.