10 years ago today, ETH forked away from the original chain to undo the DAO hack. The chain that refused is Ethereum Classic.

On July 20, 2016, at block 1,920,000, Ethereum Foundation hard forked to reverse the DAO hack — rewriting the ledger to claw back the ~3.6M ETH drained from the DAO contract. That new, rewritten chain is what everyone now calls Ethereum (ETH).

Ethereum (ETH) is a fork of Ethereum Classic (ETC)

But not everyone followed. A group of miners, users, and developers kept running the original chain — the one without the rollback. They didn't create anything new; they just refused to abandon the rules. That original chain is Ethereum Classic (ETC).

It was expected to die. No branding, no exchange support, no roadmap — the name "Ethereum Classic" didn't even exist yet. Then a pseudonymous miner known as Wiz pointed his hashpower at the unforked chain and kept it alive through the first hours. Within days, exchanges listed it — Poloniex on July 24, Kraken on the 26th, Bitfinex right after. By mid-August, supporters published a Declaration of Independence: "This is not a new chain. This is Ethereum." No premine, no bailout, no insiders — a fair continuation of the original ledger.

Ten years later, that decision has held up:

- 100% ledger immutability since genesis — no rollbacks, no rewrites, no discretionary monetary policy

- The most secure Proof-of-Work smart contract platform in the world

- Fixed supply (~210M cap), full EVM compatibility, disinflationary by design

- From "the chain that refused to die" to the backbone of programmable Proof-of-Work finance

The whole split came down to one question: can you rewrite a ledger to undo a bad outcome? ETH said yes, once. ETC said no, ever. That's the entire difference — and it's why "Code is Law" still means something here.

And the story isn't finished. With the Olympia upgrade on the horizon, ETC is working toward becoming the first financially sovereign Proof-of-Work network — one that funds its own development without foundations or premines.

Full ten-year writeup here:

https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/687d33500973d947194ba4bf/

Ten years unforked. One ledger, never rewritten.