Bob Summerwill joins the Ethereum Classic Cooperative as Executive Director

Recently, as per an official declaration, Bob Summerwill who is a developer at blockchain tech company ConsenSys has joined the Ethereum Classic Cooperative as its executive director.

Formed in April 2017, as per the firm’s website, the ETC Cooperative is a non-profit organization created “to financially support the growth and development of the Ethereum Classic protocol.” The Ethereum Classic Cooperative controls the development and growth pertaining to Ethereum Classic (ETC) cryptocurrency’s protocol. In 2016, due to the existence of a hard fork, Ethereum Classic came out in the form of the resultant output.

According to the statement revealed by the company, Summerwill would be responsible for strengthening relationships that benefit ETC and encourage the company’s mission with respect to ETC’s development and community. His main agenda would be to focus on the exchange of ideas and trust. Summerwill will also support in the current ETC initiatives to create a harmony bridge that transfers ETH and ETC between two networks. He will also be recognizing and work with the teams who want to get more tech and ecosystem support to ETC, all while swinging ETC’s flags of immutability, censorship resistance, and decentralization.

Summerwill stated that: “I look forward to healing the wounds that were made in the past and help the community forget about the zero sum thinking. I want people to see the Ethereum Classic community as it is: a powerful, principled group of individuals who have the same goal of developing useful technology instead of focusing on an ideologically drive group of zealots that don’t achieve technical development.”

He further added that “I would like people to be hacking on Emerald at ETHDenver. I would like to work with IOHK on getting Mantis into Hyperledger, and having codebases which support ETC, ETH and enterprise scenarios. There are so many opportunities for collaboration across the whole blockchain space. If we want the potential of blockchain to be realized, we should be working together, not fighting amongst ourselves.”

He also said that “Something I’ve been talking about a lot through 2018 is this call to an end for tribalism, If you look at the whole of blockchain, it’s still a tiny thing compared to existing centralized technology bases, but you’ve got so much factionalism within blockchain where we’re really not being as effective as we could be.”

Further as per the statement of devs, the last observed hash rate consolidation was not due to a result of 51 percent attack which can be purported double spends if not detected.
Clarifying, he said “Your [ETC] funds are as safe as your private keys are and really the answer is just wait longer for the confirmations. The finality on the proof of work chains is statistical finality. It’s not absolute finality … So I think it’s exchanges that are the entities that are really at need of looking at their practices.”

Further, sounding optimistic and excited about the role, Summerwill added “I spent a lot of 2018 bridge-building, really trying to pass out the message that we are all brothers and sisters in arms, What I’m really aiming to do in this role is carry that forward in a very practical sense … I’m very excited to step into this role.”