Roy Zou discovered Bitcoin through a technology blog feed on Google Reader. A Chinese entrepreneur trained as an engineer, he was impressed by Bitcoin's core ideology. When Ethereum Classic launched o
Roy Zou discovered Bitcoin through a technology blog feed on Google Reader. A Chinese entrepreneur trained as an engineer, he was impressed by Bitcoin's core ideology. When Ethereum Classic launched on July 24, he recognized the moment's significance.
"When I saw the announcement about Ethereum Classic in Bitcointalk on July 24, I was shocked," Zou said. "I realized that this is a big event for blockchain technology. One word came from my brain: milestone. It is certainly a milestone event in the process of development of blockchain."
Zou joined the ETC core team. "My job is to help build a robust ETC Chinese community and a bridge between the Chinese community and the ETC global community," he said. Building momentum required more than enthusiasm. The community needed basic infrastructure: an official website with news and updates, a roadmap for development, and a mission statement.
Zou co-founded the Shanghai ETC Meetup group. On September 3, he and Chandler Guo, a Beijing-based angel investor in bitcoin startups and a well-known cryptocurrency miner, would organize the community's first event. Local enthusiasts, exchange representatives, miners, developers, and investors were expected to attend.
Following cryptocurrency's founding principles, Zou wanted to organize the Chinese community as a decentralized outfit. Unlike Ethereum, which had Vitalik Buterin at its center, ETC needed no single authority figure.
"It means there is no a traditional meaning of power structure, no official team, organization, or any other centralized entities," Zou explained. "A limited leadership is vital to help build a robust community maintain ETC's ideology."
This approach faced a practical problem. "If you don't have an organization, people just don't trust you," Zou said. He was exploring governance models with other community members, miners, exchanges, and investors, searching for a structure that could command people's confidence while maintaining ETC's decentralized character.
China represented uncharted territory for Ethereum Classic. The country had 1.3 billion residents, boasted the world's second-largest economy, and hosted massive bitcoin mining and trading operations. Zou saw the nation as central to ETC's future.
"I see China as a vital place for ETC with lots of opportunities," he said. "It can bring something more valuable than a cryptocurrency, like the concepts of decentralization and censorship-resistance to this society. I see ETC as a movement, an enlightenment. It means a lot to the Chinese society."
Chinese interest in Ethereum Classic drew from multiple sources. Some investors bought ETC for what they perceived as a favorable price. Others came from the existing bitcoin community. "Chinese Bitcoiners also come to join the ETC community," Zou noted. "They support ETC because they think ETC has a similar ideology to Bitcoin: decentralized, immutable and permissionless."
Local exchanges were responding. CHBTC.com, one of China's largest bitcoin trading platforms, added ETC support and committed to donate 50 percent of ETC trading fees toward supporting developers, the community, and distributed app projects.
Market conditions in China drove investment toward digital assets. "Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the perfect market for Chinese in these way: a global market, opened 24/7, which promises high returns," Zou explained. China's domestic capital markets remained opaque and restricted. Cryptocurrencies offered an escape route. Bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin already dominated Chinese trading. "Soon it will apply to ETC," Zou predicted.
The hard fork debate shaped much of this momentum. In May, a hacker stole 60 million dollars from The DAO, a smart contract on Ethereum designed to function as a fund for projects on the platform. Ethereum's core developers faced a choice: accept the loss or rewrite the network. On July 20, they implemented a hard fork, rolling back the chain to undo the theft. The solution created a new version of the ledger with the stolen funds recoverable by their original owners.
This decision exposed a fundamental problem. Blockchains claim permanence and immutability as core features. Ethereum's developers had overridden that principle. The implications disturbed Zou.
"Some fundamental aspects of blockchain can't be voted to change," he said. "If you vote to change the basic principal of blockchain for the individual interests, you just break the essential spirit of blockchain. In this case, it breaks the immutability of blockchain."
The hard fork protected a specific group of victims but did not serve the broader ecosystem. "not the whole community or industry," Zou observed. Bitcoin faced the same test of its principles. "Bitcoin also faces this issue right now. Ethereum's hard fork gives Bitcoin an excellent case to study and learn from it," he said.
The ETC community was constructing what Zou called "global community hubs" in London, Zurich, Melbourne, New York, and Shanghai. These spaces would bring together developers, entrepreneurs, educators, and marketers. Built in "completely decentralized form," the hubs would operate independently under a standard framework, allowing members to share ideas and execute projects while minimizing single points of failure.
