While investors are looking at newer, exotic cryptocurrencies, some of the veterans in the space are still providing great stability and price action. There are only a few relevant and mineable cryptos left in the industry, with Bitcoin leading this category.
However, Ethereum Classis and Monero come out as great alternatives. They depend on different market dynamics, which decorrelates their price action significantly.
We will analyze ETC versus XMR to provide you with a detailed overview of their fundamentals. We compare their similarities and differences so that you can better understand the factors that drive their prices.
ETC vs XMR: Similar Features
Despite different use cases, ETC and XMR are similar in their core technology.
Blockchain
ETC is the original Ethereum blockchain, continuing the first smart contract platform’s legacy. It’s the result of a fork following a significant hack of the Ethereum network in 2016. A part of the Ethereum community didn’t accept reversing the transactions that caused the hack, believing it went against the blockchain ethos of immutability.
As a result, Ethereum Classic is the network that continued the course of the original network. Ethereum, on the contrary, was forked into the platform we all know today. Consequently, Ethereum Classic still uses the original PoW consensus and ETC is a GPU-mineable crypto.
Monero was created in 2014 to answer to the shortcomings of Bitcoin regarding the privacy of transactions. Its blockchain uses PoW consensus, which can be mined with the power of CPUs, making it more democratic than other cryptos.
Both ETC and XMR are fully decentralized networks that rely on miners to validate transactions. Both are available for trading on https://godex.io/.
Anonymity
Since Ethereum Classic and Monero employ blockchain technology, they provide a decent level of anonymity. Transactions remain pseudonymous when using ETC, while they are completely anonymous when using XMR.
ETC vs XMR: Differences
With those similarities out of the way, let’s dive into the differences that make these networks unique in their own right.
Consensus Algorithm
Both blockchains use a proof of work consensus algorithm. Ethereum Classic uses the Ethash algorithm, which has been modified in 2020 to be more secure than before. To achieve this, the Ethash epoch duration was doubled from 30,000 to 60,000 during the Thanos upgrade as an answer to a string of hacks that occurred on the chain.
Monero, on the other hand, uses the RandomX consensus algorithm, unique to its blockchain. It’s an algorithm that has been optimized to work with CPUs for mining and is hence much more democratic than ETC. It has allowed Monero to remain fully decentralized over the years, as anyone is able to spin up a node at minimal costs.
Privacy and Anonymity
Privacy is the main differentiating point between ETC and XMR. While ETC uses standard pseudonymous public addresses, Monero focuses fully on the privacy of its users.
Through the use of Ring CTs and stealth addresses, transactions on Monero are entirely obfuscated. An external observer can neither see the amounts transacted, nor the sender or recipient addresses for each transaction. This enforces high privacy features for anyone using XMR.
Smart Contracts and Development
ETC is an EVM-compatible chain that provides a smart contract environment for creating dApps. These are fully compatible with the current Ethereum chain, making it easy for developers to port decentralized software. ETC doesn’t have plans to move to PoS for scalability, raising concerns regarding its long-term viability.
Monero has a unique offering as a transaction and payment network, providing high privacy to its users. Its dynamic block size allows it to scale with the number of transactions. Moreover, it never lags even if there are a high amount of users.
ETC vs XMR: Summary
Ethereum Classic continues the legacy of the original ETH network. It provides users with a fully decentralized, mineable network. Many competitors have already surpassed its smart contract capability, making investors doubt its place in the industry.
Monero, on the other hand, is finding more adoption each day. With regulations requiring KYC on other networks, XMR seems like the perfect solution for privacy and decentralization.