Ethereum Classic
ETC#54ETC is the native coin of Ethereum Classic, a proof-of-work blockchain for smart contracts.
- Market cap
- $1.4B
- Volume 24h
- $69.75M
- All-time high
- —
- Circulating supply
- 158.36M of 210.7M
Passes our 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: excessive uncertainty (gharar) and benefit and harm (maslahah).
- 6 pass
- 2 caution
- 0 fail
Verdict history
- HalalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Ethereum Classic?8 Shariah criteria
6 pass · 2 caution · 0 failHolding ETC earns nothing: the protocol pays only miners, with new coins and fees, for proof-of-work.
Riba means interest, or any fixed increase on a loan. Under ECIP-1017 the only new ETC is the block reward (1.6384 ETC per block since 22 July 2026) plus uncle rewards, paid to miners who do the proof-of-work. Fees also go to miners. ETC has no staking, and the protocol lends nothing and pays holders nothing, so simply holding ETC produces no income. The EIP-1559 base fee is not active on ETC; the draft Olympia plan would send it to a treasury, not to holders. Interest appears only in products built around ETC, such as exchange lending, which are assessed separately under trading mechanisms.
No interest mechanism exists in the coin itself, so the criterion gets the full score.
ETC is a working network with a real fee function, and Islamic Finance Guru, the authoritative source for ETC, rates it permissible.
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. ETC works: it has produced blocks since 2015, about 25.4 million so far, and ETC is needed to pay gas for its smart contracts. But real use is thin. On 27 September 2026 the explorer showed network utilisation of about 0.35%, DeFi apps on ETC held about $146,000, and total fees were about $788 over 30 days.
Among official bodies, Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council (2020) treats digital currency without an underlying asset as goods ('urudh) that may be traded on registered exchanges, and Selangor (2021) allows it on conditions. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2017), the UAE General Authority of Islamic Affairs (2018), Turkey's Diyanet (2017) and Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit dealing in cryptocurrency, and the OIC Fiqh Academy (2019) deferred a ruling. None names ETC. That general dispute is reflected in confidence, not in this score. IFG, the authoritative source for ETC, rates it permissible; light use is not a defect in the asset itself, since ETC pays for gas and is held as a fixed-supply coin, so the criterion gets the full score.
ETC is not a gambling token, though futures dominate its trading and dwarf its on-chain use.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through real exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and ETC has no chance-based payout of its own. The market around it is heavily speculative, though. On Binance on 27 September 2026, 24-hour ETCUSDT perpetual futures volume was about $38 million against about $4.3 million of spot volume, about nine times more (a single-venue, single-day snapshot). CoinGecko showed about $74–76 million of daily trading volume while the whole network collected about $28 of fees that day, so trading far outweighs use of the chain.
ETC has a real function as a fee coin and a fixed-supply store of value, and has no gambling mechanics of its own, so futures dominance lowers the score only within pass.
There is no issuing company or treasury; new coins and fees go only to miners as payment for securing the network.
The revenue thresholds (below 5% from clearly impermissible sources, below 20% from disputed ones) apply to an issuer's or protocol's economics. ETC has no issuer, no treasury and no reserves. Protocol changes go through the open ECIP process and are adopted by node operators and miners. The only income in the system is what miners earn: the block reward and transaction fees, which are payment for a service. Fees are tiny, about $788 over 30 days, so miners live almost entirely on the block reward. None of this income is interest, gambling or a prohibited industry.
The draft Olympia plan would create an on-chain treasury funded by the base fee, with spending decided through on-chain governance; it is not active, rival drafts would pay the fee to miners instead, and it would need a fresh assessment if adopted. No impermissible income was found, so the criterion gets the full score.
Supply and code are public, but the chain's history was rewritten by 51% attacks in 2019 and 2020, and block production is concentrated.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty about what is being bought or delivered. The supply side is clear: ECIP-1017 caps ETC at about 210.7 million, the reward falls 20% every 5 million blocks, there are no unlocks, and the client code is open source. The uncertainty is in settlement. Attackers with rented hashpower rewrote ETC's recent history on 5 and 7 January 2019 (219,500 ETC double-spent, per Coinbase) and three times in August 2020, the deepest reorganisation being more than 7,000 blocks, about two days of mining. Payments that looked final were reversed.
The MESS defence added in October 2020 was switched off by default in February 2024, on the argument that ETC now accounts for most compatible hashrate, and no attack since 2020 was found. But block production looks concentrated: in three samples of the 50 latest blocks on 27 September 2026, one miner address (likely a pool) mined 27–28 blocks, about half (small samples, not a pool-level measure). Governance of fee funding is also unsettled between rival drafts. IFG rates ETC permissible; the criterion stays at caution because reversed settlements and concentrated block production are documented, concrete uncertainties.
ETC is used mainly for holding, trading and paying network fees; no notable share of impermissible use was found, though overall use is small.
This criterion looks at what the asset is actually used for. ETC's main uses are holding as a fixed-supply coin, investment (Grayscale's trust held about 10.85 million ETC, about 7% of supply, on 30 June 2026) and paying gas on its smart-contract network. On-chain activity is small: about 8,000 transactions in part of 27 September 2026 and about $146,000 in DeFi. CryptoUmmah notes that DeFi apps on ETC contribute a small share of miner fees, which is why it asks for purification, but with DeFi this small the disputed share is minor.
No evidence was found that gambling, prohibited content or interest-based finance is a main use. Small overall use is a data point, not a violation, so the criterion gets the full score.
ETC can be bought fully paid on the spot and held in one's own wallet; a Shariah-screened exchange account also lists it.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. ETC trades spot, with full payment and delivery, on major exchanges such as Binance, and it can be withdrawn to a self-custody wallet. In December 2024 the ETC project reported that Bybit's Sharia-compliant trading service had approved ETC after review by scholars. In the US, the Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust is a passive vehicle holding only ETC with Coinbase Custody; it trades over the counter and charges 2.5% a year.
Ownership therefore does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers, which are assessed separately below. The criterion gets the full score.
ETC offers a fixed-supply ledger that its community refuses to roll back by decision, but its benefit is modest given low use, and past 51% attacks and proof-of-work energy use are real harms.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit: ETC keeps a ledger that its community refuses to rewrite by social decision, with a known supply cap and open access. But its practical use is small, with network utilisation of about 0.35% in September 2026. The harm side: repeated 51% attacks in 2019 and 2020 let attackers double-spend millions of dollars at exchanges; the 1 August 2020 attacker reportedly rented hashpower for about 17.5 BTC and double-spent about 807,000 ETC. Proof-of-work mining also uses energy, though no ETC-specific energy estimate was found.
Weighing modest benefit against these harms gives caution, not fail: the network is not a tool built for fraud.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying ETC with full payment and immediate delivery is widely available, and coins can be moved to a self-custody wallet. Spot is acceptable for a HALAL-rated asset. Because of past 51% attacks, exchanges may require many confirmations before crediting deposits.
There is no exchange-listed US ETC ETF. The Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust (OTCQX: ETCG) holds only ETC with Coinbase Custody and its filing describes no staking or lending, but it trades over the counter rather than on an exchange and charges 2.5% a year. Its Shariah status was not reviewed.
Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is banned by law in Indonesia and Turkey. ETC is rarely used for payments in practice.
Not available natively: ETC uses proof-of-work, so there is no protocol staking. Any 'ETC staking' or 'earn' product offered by an exchange is a third-party arrangement whose source of return must be checked; it is likely to be lending.
Always fail: borrowing to trade with leverage, without full delivery (AAOIFI SS 20).
ETC perpetual futures are its largest trading market, but futures, perpetuals and options always fail: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
Lending ETC for a return, on exchanges or lending platforms, pays interest from borrowers. This is riba.
ETC itself pays holders nothing, and ETC yield products get their return from lending, which is interest. Mining is the only way to earn ETC for network work, and it is not a yield product on held coins.
Scholars quotes
The opinion on this is the same as doing the same with any halal assets such as shares – 1) is permissible, 2) is more debatable and there are differing opinions on short-term trading.Ethereum classic is Shariah Compliant.As I mentioned at the beginning of this article it is not necessary to substantiate the permissibility of something as long as there are no prohibited factors involved in it or surrounding it.Penggunaan cryptocurrency sebagai mata uang hukumnya haram, karena mengandung gharar (ketidakjelasan), dharar (bahaya) dan bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang nomor 7 tahun 2011 tentang Mata Uang dan Peraturan Bank Indonesia nomor 17 tahun 2015 tentang Kewajiban Penggunaan Rupiah di Wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.Sebagaimana mata wang yang lain, mata wang digital hendaklah tidak digunakan sebagai bayaran kepada barangan, perkhidmatan dan aktiviti tidak patuh Syariah seperti pembelian dadah, pelacuran, perjudian dan pendanaan aktiviti keganasan serta penggubahan wang haram.The SAC has also resolved that investment and trading of Digital Assets that fulfil the above requirements and which are traded on Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) registered with SC are permissible.Third: In light of the above and given the significant risks associated with this type of currencies and the instability of their transactions, the Council of the Academy recommends pursuing research and studies on issues affecting its ruling.Bitcoin is a digital currency that does not meet the legal and Sharia criteria that make it a currency subject to the rulings of dealing with official legal currencies recognized internationally.بناءً على ذلك: فلا يجوز شرعًا تداول عملة "البتكوين" والتعامل من خلالها بالبيعِ والشراءِ والإجارةِ وغيرها، بل يُمنع من الاشتراكِ فيها؛ لعدمِ اعتبارِها كوسيطٍ مقبولٍ للتبادلِ من الجهاتِ المخُتصَّةِ، ولِمَا تشتمل عليه من الضررِ الناشئ عن الغررِ والجهالةِ والغشِّ في مَصْرِفها ومِعْيارها وقِيمتها، فضلًا عما تؤدي إليه ممارستُها من مخاطرَ عاليةٍ على الأفراد والدول.According to research and opinion of experts so far, cryptocurrency is not considered ‘ maal ’ (wealth) in Sharia.Muhammadiyah memandang transaksi dan investasi kripto pada dasarnya mubah (boleh) tetapi dengan syarat tertentu.Our current position is 'tawaquf'; we can't say it is halal or haram, but we say it is better not to engage in itAI-assisted analysis checked against sources. Not a fatwa or investment advice.
Where it trades
Section in preparation
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