In the days following the DAO fork on July 20, 2016, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly acknowledged Ethereum Classic's legitimacy.
The Statement
Buterin stated that Ethereum Classic, as the continuation of the original unforked chain, had a right to exist. He recognized that the community members who rejected the irregular state change were acting on legitimate principles — specifically, the belief that blockchains should not have their history rewritten by any party, regardless of intent.
Context
The DAO fork had divided the Ethereum community. The majority supported the fork to recover funds from the DAO exploit, but a significant minority believed the intervention violated blockchain immutability. When the original chain continued to receive mining support and exchange listings, it became clear that both chains would persist.
Significance
Buterin's endorsement was notable because:
- Legitimacy: It came from Ethereum's most prominent co-founder, lending credibility to ETC at a critical early moment
- Principle: It acknowledged that reasonable people could disagree about whether the DAO fork was the right decision
- Precedent: It established that blockchain forks could produce two legitimate chains with different governance philosophies
Two Chains, One Origin
From this point forward, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic shared identical history up to block 1,920,000 but diverged in philosophy. Ethereum pursued pragmatic governance with the ability to make irregular state changes when community consensus supported them. Ethereum Classic committed to absolute immutability and the principle that the protocol should never override smart contract outcomes.
Both chains trace their genesis to July 30, 2015. The difference is purely in governance philosophy.