Overview
Ethereum Classic Network
Live network and market data from Blockscout and CoinGecko.
$9.01
ETC Price
-4.48% (24h)
$1.41B
Market Cap
143.4M
Total Transactions
2015
Network Origin
$1.41B
Market Capitalization
Rank #60 by market cap
645.5M
Total Addresses
All-time unique addresses on Ethereum Classic
24.6M
Total Blocks
Blocks produced since genesis (2015)
~15s
Block Time
Average time between blocks
Network
Economics
Network Architecture
The Only Proof-of-Work EVM
Ethereum Classic is not simply a Proof-of-Work network or simply a smart contract platform. It sits at the intersection of both, inheriting the commodity classification path that Bitcoin established and the programmable finance frameworks that Ethereum established. Bitcoin has PoW without programmability. Ethereum has the EVM without PoW. ETC has both — and its regulatory surface is additive, not exclusive.
From Proof-of-Work
Bitcoin’s regulatory trajectory
No pre-mine, no foundation controlling the protocol, no issuer.
Mining hardware is globally distributed and permissionless to acquire.
Block rewards and tips go to miners — the treasury is funded by basefee, not inflation.
CLARITY Act digital commodity classification path: same PoW profile as Bitcoin.
Energy demand that co-locates with any power source, anywhere in the world.
From the EVM
Ethereum’s regulatory trajectory
Full Solidity and EVM compatibility — every Ethereum tool, library, and framework works without modification.
Classic USD ($USC) by Brale: a live, 1:1 USD-backed stablecoin on a PoW chain — a first.
GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin infrastructure, the first on any Proof-of-Work network.
ETCswap V2 and V3 provide on-chain liquidity for composable DeFi with a regulated stable base.
MiCA decentralized asset classification: exempt from ART/EMT issuer obligations.
How We Help
Ethereum Classic’s second decade requires more than open-source stewardship. Public RPC endpoints, block explorers, oracle networks, and institutional custody integrations all operate under service agreements that require a named legal counterparty. Regulatory reporting, vendor contracts, and institutional relationships cannot be executed by ad-hoc community coordination. Ethereum Classic DAO LLC is that counterparty — building the protocol and infrastructure while maintaining the compliance framework that institutional participants require to engage with the network.
Core Client Development
The contributors behind Ethereum Classic DAO LLC have been the technical and principled stewards of Ethereum Classic since inception — every client decision, network upgrade, and emergency response coordinated by those same contributors across every ETC upgrade since 2016. A decade of accumulated domain knowledge drives every protocol decision: knowing not just what to build, but how to honor ETC's foundational principles while adapting to an evolving blockchain landscape. We are the humans behind billions of dollars in network value, driven to deliver a first-in-class Proof-of-Work smart contract experience for every stakeholder the network serves.
Critical Infrastructure
Public RPC endpoints, block explorers, oracle networks, and institutional custody integrations all operate under service agreements that require a named legal counterparty — that entity is us. Vendor contracts, regulatory reporting, and institutional relationships cannot be executed by ad-hoc coordination; a mature network requires a formal structure. As the off-chain legal wrapper for on-chain governance, we hold the agreements, execute the decisions, and provide the organizational continuity that Ethereum Classic's second decade requires.
Hashrate Incentive Alignment
Billions of dollars in globally distributed mining infrastructure secures Ethereum Classic, the largest Proof-of-Work smart contract platform. The contributors behind Ethereum Classic DAO LLC positioned ETC as the PoW EVM in 2018, implemented the Thanos upgrade in response to the 2020 51% attacks, and defended the ETChash miner base from corporate capture ahead of The Merge. We are building the decentralized funding mechanisms that keep miner software current and PoW economically viable long-term. Domestic US mining operations are positioned under the Mined in America Act, aligned with our Wyoming DAO LLC registration and a decade of ETC core development.
Global Regulatory Navigation
ETC straddles two regulatory trajectories — digital commodity under the CLARITY Act and MiCA, and regulated stablecoin infrastructure under the GENIUS Act — giving it the broadest institutional access profile of any Proof-of-Work network. We track compliance across leading global regulatory frameworks across the US, EU, UK, Japan, and UAE, with Classic USD as a live proof of GENIUS Act and MiCA alignment on ETC mainnet.
What We Do
A decade of Ethereum Classic stewardship organized across four interdependent areas: protocol engineering that keeps ETC current with the EVM while honoring the network’s immutability commitments; infrastructure operations ensuring every institutional touchpoint has a reliable legal counterparty; security economics keeping Proof-of-Work viable and honest miners economically aligned; and regulatory navigation positioning ETC favorably across every major jurisdiction simultaneously. These are not independent workstreams — client software quality determines the regulatory profile, the regulatory profile determines institutional accessibility, and institutional adoption determines the network economics that fund the client work.
The contributors behind Ethereum Classic DAO LLC have been the technical and principled stewards of Ethereum Classic since inception — every client decision, network upgrade, and emergency response coordinated by those same contributors across every ETC upgrade since 2016. A decade of accumulated domain knowledge drives every protocol decision. We maintain EVM protocol parity with Ethereum so that every Solidity contract, development tool, and institutional integration built for the EVM works on Ethereum Classic without modification. Multiple independent implementations ensure no single point of failure in the protocol stack. We are driven to deliver a first-in-class Proof-of-Work smart contract experience for every stakeholder the network serves.
Public RPC endpoints, block explorers, oracle networks, and institutional custody integrations all operate under service agreements that require a named legal counterparty — that entity is us. When on-chain governance directs resources, we are the organization that signs the contracts, holds the service agreements, and fulfills the reporting obligations that follow. Vendor contracts, regulatory reporting, and institutional relationships cannot be executed by ad-hoc coordination; a mature network requires a formal structure. We are responsible for uptime commitments, vendor relationships, and regulatory reporting across the infrastructure the network depends on. As the off-chain legal wrapper for on-chain governance, we provide the organizational continuity that Ethereum Classic's second decade requires.
Billions of dollars in globally distributed mining infrastructure secures Ethereum Classic, the largest Proof-of-Work smart contract platform. We ensure that the economics of mining ETC directly fund the protocol work that keeps the network worth mining. When ETC faced a wave of 51% attacks in 2020, the contributors behind Ethereum Classic DAO LLC responded with the Thanos upgrade. When corporate interests attempted to change the mining algorithm ahead of The Merge in a way that would have disenfranchised the existing miner base, those same contributors held the line and protected ETChash miners. We monitor network security continuously and serve as the active response layer when threats emerge. We are building the decentralized funding mechanisms that keep miner software current and PoW economically viable long-term. Domestic US mining operations are positioned under the Mined in America Act, aligned with our Wyoming DAO LLC registration and a decade of ETC core development.
Ethereum Classic DAO is a Wyoming-registered DAO LLC. We track and maintain compliance across leading global regulatory frameworks in the US, EU, UK, Japan, and UAE: CLARITY Act (US, digital commodity candidate), GENIUS Act (US, stablecoin platform, signed July 2025), MiCA (EU, decentralized asset, in force Dec 2024), FSA Green List (Japan), FSMA (UK, implementation Oct 2027), and VARA (UAE). Classic USD ($USC) is a live stablecoin on ETC mainnet, aligned with both GENIUS Act and MiCA requirements. The Mined in America Act covers domestic US mining infrastructure as a federal energy asset program. We maintain this alignment actively, tracking regulatory developments across every jurisdiction and building the infrastructure that lets institutional participants operate with confidence globally.
Coordinating Organizations
Ethereum Classic’s governance infrastructure is coordinated across legal, protocol, treasury, and network layers, alongside the foundational organizations — the ETC Cooperative and Grayscale Investments — whose decade of funded development and regulated institutional access built the foundation this infrastructure continues.
Governance Architecture
Ethereum Classic governance operates through three complementary and mutually reinforcing systems. Membership-based on-chain governance handles binding protocol decisions — formal votes with financial stakes, configurable timelocks, and automatic on-chain execution. Open prediction markets extend participation beyond the membership, bringing financially incentivized signal from anyone willing to stake capital on an outcome. Network participants — miners, exchanges, wallets, and infrastructure operators — govern through the client software they choose to run: distributed adoption is the governance act that makes a protocol change real. Each layer informs the others, and each provides a check the others cannot.
Core Development Governance
Binding On-Chain Protocol Governance
Binding governance scoped to core client software, critical infrastructure, network security, treasury allocation, and emergency protocol responses. The treasury is funded continuously by basefee revenue, on-chain donations, and miners directing hashpower to the treasury address. Stakeholders who prefer a traditional giving model can also contribute through the ETC Cooperative, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit that accepts tax-deductible donations.
Any stakeholder, whether exchanges, custodians, miners, investment product issuers, or institutions holding ETC on behalf of fund shareholders, can contribute directly on-chain with no overhead and no intermediaries. Settlement is immediate and verifiable. No coordination calls, no invoices, no preferred relationships.
Core development is no longer gated behind employment. Open proposals let any of the thousands of EVM developers worldwide bid for development funds, infrastructure contracts, and critical service agreements covering block explorers, RPC endpoints, oracles, bridges, and ecosystem integrations. Open proposals, open bids, open funding, all executed by the Wyoming DAO LLC on behalf of what the Olympia DAO approves on-chain.
Propose
Any ETC account can submit a funding proposal on-chain
Vote
Membership NFT holders vote on-chain via OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x
Queue
Approved proposals enter a configurable security timelock
Execute
After timelock, proposals execute on-chain without manual intervention
Disclose
All outcomes are publicly recorded and verifiable on-chain
Futarchy Markets
Open Prediction Markets and Public Signal
Open prediction markets where anyone can speculate on protocol outcomes without membership. Participants are financially rewarded for accurate predictions, bringing new users onto ETC and generating transaction volume that flows as basefee revenue into the protocol treasury. Better signal produces more development funding and better protocol outcomes, creating a self-reinforcing loop between public participation and core development capacity.
Open
Anyone opens a prediction market on a proposed protocol outcome
Speculate
Public participants stake on outcomes with no membership required
Resolve
Markets settle when the underlying governance event executes on-chain
Signal
Market prices feed back as on-chain signal into future governance decisions
Network Participant Layer
Software Adoption as Governance Signal
Every node operator, mining pool, exchange, and wallet provider participates in governance through the client software they choose to run. When the DAO approves a protocol upgrade and independent client teams publish compatible releases, network adoption is the final step. An upgrade becomes real when the infrastructure that secures, settles, and routes ETC transactions upgrades to support it. No membership required, no market position to open — running the software is the governance act.
DAO Approval
Olympia DAO votes to approve a protocol upgrade through the on-chain governance process
Client Releases
Independent client teams publish compatible implementations of the approved upgrade
Network Adoption
Miners, exchanges, wallets, and node operators upgrade their software across the network
Distributed Consensus
The upgrade activates when the broader network has adopted the new software — distributed participation made real