Ethereum Classic (ETC) vs Ethereum (ETH): comparison
Side-by-side comparison of Ethereum Classic and Ethereum: how their prices moved, how they differ technically and what each is used for.
ETC and ETH: key specs
| Ethereum Classic (ETC) | Ethereum (ETH) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $7.78 | $2,570.75 |
| Ticker | ETC | ETH |
| Type | native blockchain coin | native blockchain coin |
| Launched | 2015 | 2015 |
| Consensus | Proof of Work (Etchash) | Proof of Stake |
| Transaction privacy | public transactions | public transactions |
| Circulating supply | 158.14 M ETC | 122.04 M ETH |
| Market cap | $1.23 B | $313.62 B |
| Market cap rank | #68 | #2 |
| Created by | — | Vitalik Buterin |
| Block time | — | ~12 sec |
| Max supply | — | no cap |
CoinGecko data as of Sep 11, 2026, 19:03. How we calculate the data
Price change: ETC vs ETH
Both prices are set to 100 at the start of the period, so the chart shows which coin grew or fell more, not the prices themselves.
| Period | ETC | ETH |
|---|---|---|
| 7 days | +0.71% | −1.28% |
| 30 days | +19.93% | +31.65% |
| 90 days | +6.41% | +47.33% |
The correlation of their daily price changes over the last 90 days is 0.63 (moderate).
ETC or ETH: what each is used for
- Smart contracts and appsEthereum Classic and Ethereum
How Ethereum Classic and Ethereum work
How Ethereum Classic works
ETC remains on Proof of Work (Etchash) and follows a fixed monetary policy: the block reward is reduced by 20% every 5 million blocks, which limits the total supply. It runs the same kind of smart contracts as Ethereum.
What Ethereum Classic is used for
ETC is used for payments, for smart contracts and by miners who prefer a Proof of Work chain.
How Ethereum works
Since September 2022 Ethereum has used Proof of Stake: validators lock ETH to propose and confirm blocks, with a new slot every 12 seconds. Smart contracts run in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Part of every transaction fee is burned, so the net supply depends on network activity.
What Ethereum is used for
ETH is used to pay gas fees, as collateral in DeFi, for staking and as a settlement asset across the ecosystem. Layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism also use ETH for fees, which makes it the working currency of a large part of the crypto economy.