The tennis court oath was a pivotal moment in the French revolution.
The Estates General, comprising members of the First (clergy), Second (nobility), and Third (commoners) Estates, met at Versailles to discuss future governance.
After much disagreement and bickering the Third Estate decided to break from the Estates General. They would seek to create their own constitution.
The Third Estate were soon locked out of their regular meeting place. Forced to gather instead at a nearby tennis court, they vowed to press on. They would draft a new constitution for France.
The Third Estate assumed for itself power it did not otherwise have. This was the true beginning of the French Revolution.
Ethereum had its own Tennis Court Oath moment today, of sorts.
Amidst the spectre of divisive revolution, major Dapp developers in the Ethereum ecosystem gathered where all good crypto-community debate takes place; Reddit.
There Etherum’s leading Dapp projects vowed to continue developing for the ETH chain. Each vowed to continue writing code for Ethereum.
Well, the majority did anyway. It was not unanimous. Some declared allegiance to Ethereum Classic.
Here is a list of all the leading Dapps in the Ethereum ecosystem and where they stand.
Digix,
Maker,
Colony,
AKASHA,
ROULΞTH,
Plutus,
REIDAO,
vDice,
SingularDTV,
Braveno,
Etheropt,
otlw,
Etherdelta,
Swarm,
Gnosis,
Augur,
Velocity,
FreeMyVunk
Stampery (cross chain Bitcoin project),
Daemon Dark Market.
It is important to note also that this was not a blood oath. Loyalty was not absolute. Some developers declared that they are only supporting ETH because of practical reasons.
At the moment ETH is the strongest chain. It has the highest market capitalisation, the most hashing power, the greater developer talent, and the most sunk cost.
If the situation were to change, a number of developers from key projects indicated that they would at least consider supporting both.
If the situation were to completely reverse, then we could expect many developers to switch chains completely. The transition would be somewhat arbitrary as they are both the same technology.
Already developers have started copying existing Dapp codebases over to the ETC chain.
Of course, a Dapp is more than just its code. If requires constant development, maintenance and promotion. But if higher quality developers start cloning Dapps for ETC and showing real commitment to those projects, things could change quickly.
Ethereum Classic is already defying expectations. It’s sizeable market cap and community base seem to be growing. Obviously this is very, very early days. But if the trend continues even for the next 3-months, we may be looking at a dramatically different ecosystem.
The Ethereum community seems to be adopting an approach that if you are not for them, you are against them. This could act to galvanize Ethereum Classic into a more cohesive unit. Groups of humans always perform better when they have an other to battle against.
The market will sort this out in the long-term. The best chain will win. In the short-to-medium term expect more chaos and volatility.
