Ethereum Classic

ETC is the native coin of Ethereum Classic, a proof-of-work blockchain for smart contracts.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the original Ethereum blockchain. It shares Ethereum's history from the genesis block of 30 July 2015. In July 2016 Ethereum changed its rules at block 1,920,000 to move funds taken in the DAO attack. Part of the community rejected this, holding that the ledger should not be rewritten ('Code is Law'), and kept the old chain running as Ethereum Classic.

ETC still uses proof of work: miners run computers to add blocks and earn new ETC plus fees. There is no staking and no company that issues the coin. The supply rule (ECIP-1017) cuts the block reward by 20% every 5 million blocks, so total supply can never exceed about 210.7 million ETC. About 158.3 million ETC existed in September 2026, and the block reward fell to 1.6384 ETC on 22 July 2026.

ETC runs the same kind of smart contracts as Ethereum, but it is used far less. On 27 September 2026 the network used about 0.35% of its capacity, and DeFi apps held only about $146,000. Most activity is trading on exchanges; on Binance, ETC futures volume was about nine times spot volume that day. Grayscale's ETC trust holds about 7% of all coins.

Low mining power has made ETC a target. Attackers rewrote its recent history in January 2019 and three times in August 2020, double-spending millions of dollars at exchanges. No later attack was found. Developers are now debating how to fund the network: the draft Olympia plan would send part of each fee to an on-chain treasury, while rival drafts would pay it to miners.