According to Roger Ver, the outcome of Ethereum’s hard fork was considered a good thing by the market.
The cryptocurrency investor noted that, since the #2 cryptocurrency split into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic following the theft resulting from the hack of the DAO, the combined value of both forks is now equal to greater than the original total value of a unified Ethereum:
That the combined market cap of ETH & ETC was greater after the fork means the market viewed it as a good thing. A lesson for Bitcoin?
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) August 6, 2016
Ethereum fork meant to isolate stolen funds
Following a hack of the DAO involving the theft of millions of Ether, the Ethereum community decided a hard fork was in the best interests of the cryptocurrency. The resulting fork split the currency into ETH and ETC.
Against expectation, however, the value of ETC has tripled over two weeks to a market cap of over $200 million, displacing Litecoin to become the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency on the market.
ETH, meanwhile, dropped from its peak of about $1.75 billion pre-hack to around $900 million now, a number which has remained relatively stagnant since the fork.
Additionally, ETC has gained support by several large exchanges, adding to speculation that it could one day overtake ETH.
The cryptocurrency field continues to diversify
Ethereum’s split into two continues the grand trend of cryptocurrency’s ongoing diversification. While Bitcoin’s market cap experienced its highest point in late 2013, this year was the all-time high for combined altcoin value. Bitcoin’s share of cryptocurrency’s total value is on a consistent downward trend, recently dropping once more below 80%.
While cryptocurrency continues to grow, the degree to which it relies on the larger, more established players continues to shrink.