Ethereum as we know it today (ETH) is both a literal and philosophical hard fork of the original idea that "code is law.
The now obscure blockchain, Ethereum Classic (ETC), is actually the original Ethereum.
What remains today as Ethereum (ETH) is a culture of centralized control, forced software upgrades, and a corruptible security architecture through proof of stake.
The DAO attack was the first major test of Ethereum's decentralization, and it failed.
The DAO Hack and Response:
In 2016, the first major smart contract project on Ethereum, the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) was compromised. An attacker was able to siphon off a third of the DAO's deposits (about $50 million).
This was bad for the victims, and even worse for the reputation of the nascent Ethereum project.
In response, the Ethereum Foundation created a hard-forked version of Ethereum that reversed the attacker’s exploitation and returned the funds to depositors. This is the Ethereum we know today as ETH.
When the Ethereum Foundation created the hard fork to ETH, it:
(1) revealed that Ethereum was never decentralized to begin with, since a small group could push through a hard fork to modify transaction history
(2) alienated users who were unwilling to compromise on the basic principles of a truly decentralized protocol
(3) cemented a culture of centralized control and forced software upgrades in the new, forked version of Ethereum (ETH)
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