The Ethereum network’s first successfully completed hard fork inevitably left the Ethereum community in disorder, establishing two separate chains under a single network.
The original chain, more commonly known as Ethereum Classic, has continuously received support from the community, exchanges, and miners, exponentially increasing its hashrate in a matter of hours, and reaching a US$52 million market cap.
The newly forked chain showed a glimpse of stability in terms of market value and share, with the support of the miners and Ethereum foundation.
On July 25, Ethereum core developer Zsolt Felfoldi released a statement regarding the emerging conflict between the supporters and developers of the Ethereum Classic chain and the hard forked chain, to address the Ethereum community with his take on the situation and the results of it.
Felfoldi believes that the stolen money is the property of the thief and that the Ethereum network should be proud of creating such a system which ensures the protection of properties.
“It was a shocking experience for me to find out that some people inside the foundation actually support the idea of intervention,’ he said. “I thought we all agree that there should be no higher “justice” than the result of EVM execution and the “stolen” money is the rightful property of the “thief” and we should be proud of creating a system that can protect his/her property even amidst public outrage,” Felfoldi added.
Philosophically, the Ethereum network’s hard fork to rescue the DAO and its investors strictly goes against the concept of decentralization the network has been promoting for the entirety of their existence. In fact, as Bitcoin Core developer Greg Maxwell explains, the Ethereum network’s hard fork is a representation of a centralized decision within a network, which sets a negative precedent for cryptocurrencies in general.
Regardless of the convincing argument Ethereum Classic offers, Felfoldi states that rather than building on conflicts and causing a “war” against each other, the community should eliminate hostility and appreciate the chance for success of both projects.
“Maybe the old chain will survive, maybe not, the main reason I’d like to keep it alive is because it’s such an interesting and important experiment to see how two similar chains with different implied agreements will evolve. It might even increase the overall chance of success for the project,” Felfoldi concluded.