How Ethereum Classic is navigating the current market 

• Apart from hashrate, the blockchain’s mining difficulty gained upward momentum. 
• ETC was down by over 2% in the last seven days, and a few indicators were bearish.

After Ethereum [ETH] turned Proof-of-Stake (POS), Ethereum Classic [ETC] gained much popularity for its Proof-of-Work (POW) consensus mechanism. In fact, as rightly revealed by the blockchain, ETC was the top PoW smart contract in the world, followed by Conflux and Kadena. However, in a time when PoS and Ethereum layer-2s are gaining immense popularity, will ETC be able to maintain its relevance in the industry and among investors? 

You might be interested to know #EthereumClassic is the largest #PoW smart contract network in the blockchain space, by a significant margin.

It is adopted in virtually the entire crypto CEX/Wallet ecosystem. With consistently high vol metrics and deep liquidity. pic.twitter.com/KxpcBxhqMv

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— Ethereum Classic DAO (@EthClassicDAO) July 23, 2023

Realistic or not, here’s ETC market cap in BTC terms 

Ethereum Classic remains a top POS chain

Ethereum Classic Dao recently posted a tweet pointing out the blockchain’s achievement of being the top PoW chain smart contract. This directly reflected the popularity of ETC. On top of that, its mining industry continued to grow. The main credit for this goes to Ethereum, as after the merge it turned PoS.

As per 2miners’ data, ETC’s hashrate has been on the rise for multiple weeks, suggesting an influx of new miners in the network. As the hashrate increased, the blockchain’s mining difficulty also followed the same path and went up. 

Though the blockchain’s mining ecosystem remained promising, the question of its relevance still remains. Currently, the majority of the crypto space is looking forward to energy efficient PoS chains like Etherem and its layer-2s.

A key factor that can allow ETC to remain competitive is its price, which has been bearish over the last week. According to CoinMarketCap, ETC was down by over 2% in the last seven days.

At press time, it was trading at $18.59 with a market capitalization of over $2.6 billion, making it the 28th largest crypto. Not only did the token’s price plummet, but a similar declining trend was also noted in terms of the blockchain’s value.

As per DeFiLlama’s chart, ETC’s TVL declined over the last few weeks, which was not a good signal for the blockchain. 

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A closer look at ETC’s performance

It was interesting to note that the blockchain’s social volume remained high in the last 30 days. This reflected its popularity in the crypto space. Additionally, its weighted sentiment also went up, suggesting that positive sentiment around ETC improved.

Though Ethereum Classic’s performance on the social front was high, investors should expect a few more slow moving days. As per ETC’s daily chart, the bulls and bears were in a battle trying to flip each other, as evident from its MACD and Exponential Moving Average (EMA) Ribbon.

Its Relative Strength Index also took a sideways path, further increasing the chances of slow-moving price action.