What is ETC?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is an open-source, decentralised and blockchain based distributed cryptocurrency platform that runs smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing autonomous digital applications, which are capable of running on their own as programmed, similar to systems such as the automatic teller machines (ATM) Smart contracts give the benefit of decentralised governance, which means the contracts can be enforced without a third party involved. Smart contracts are similar to if-then statements. ETC is different from ETH, because it was formed as a result of the hack of the Ethereum network in 2016. The original Ethereum blockchain was split into two - ETC being the original and ETH being the newer chain. ETH gained more popularity compared to ETC because there are some concerns around ETC regarding potential limitations when it comes to scalability.