Why Ethereum Classic Endures
I was there when we made the choice to defend immutability. It wasn’t easy, convenient, or even popular. It was the moment we decided that the principle of “code is law” was not just a slogan it was a moral commitment to the permanence of truth. When others rewrote history to protect the few, we wrote a declaration of independence and chose to protect the many. That decision gave birth to Ethereum Classic. It was a defining act of conviction, and it remains the reason I believe this network still matters. In those early days, we weren’t idealists chasing price charts; we were builders and miners defending an idea that once a transaction is recorded on a public ledger, it should remain there forever, unedited and uncorrupted. It was not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It was stewardship. We chose to protect a foundation that technology itself depends upon: the ability to trust the record without trusting the recorder.
Nearly a decade later, the landscape has evolved. Blockchains have matured, institutions have awakened, and the lines between cryptography, finance, and artificial intelligence are beginning to blur. What hasn’t changed is the importance of security and truth. These two principles, immutability and proof of work, remain the bedrock of Ethereum Classic.
I want to dispel a persistent myth: that Ethereum Classic is a “stable” chain that should never change. Stability does not mean stagnation. Every system that survives does so by adapting intelligently, not by resisting change blindly. The DAG continues to grow, new EIPs emerge, and vulnerabilities must be patched. A living network breathes, evolves, and learns. Ethereum Classic has undergone continuous development since its inception. We have modernized, optimized, and fought for compatibility while preserving our philosophical independence. To pretend that nothing should ever change is to misunderstand what it takes to stay secure in a world that never stops moving. Technology only moves forward. The question is whether we shape that future consciously, or allow others to define it for us.
Ethereum Classic can no longer live in the shadow of its sibling. Ethereum has pursued a very different path that's defined by experimentation in consensus, scaling through rollups, and economic policies driven by governance rather than principle. That is their choice. Our choice is different.
We must rise as a sovereign chain. Independent in our roadmap, self-sustaining in our governance, and confident in our role as the apex of proof-of-work security. The power to feed us through upstream repositories is also the power to starve us. We cannot depend indefinitely on the forks of Geth or Besu that now serve different architectural philosophies. Their shift toward RISC-like execution and consensus separation introduces risks we cannot inherit blindly. We need our own consensus client and the ability to support multiple execution clients. The future of ETC depends on this independence.
Sovereignty means more than code ownership. It means control over OUR shared destiny. It means that when miners commit their hash power, they are securing the principle that security earned through computation cannot be substituted by trust in validators or committees. To mine ETC is to participate in the most direct form of democracy we have where work itself is the vote, and energy the price of participation.
We are entering a new era for digital assets. The “post-genius” phase of crypto is upon us. Gone are the days when markets were defined by speculation and slogans. Today, regulated virtual asset service providers are licensed and operating globally. Banks, funds, and custodians are developing digital asset strategies, not as side experiments but as pillars of their balance sheets. Within the next 18–24 months, nearly every financial institution will confront a moment of clarity: how to manage custody, treasury, and intelligence for digital assets within compliant frameworks. After that everyone on earth will have to know something about safekeeping of their identity, money and objects.
This is where Ethereum Classic’s true value will be understood. Not as a meme or a nostalgia trip, but as infrastructure. ETC has the security of real miners running real hardware across the globe. Its state cannot be manipulated without a valid transaction. Its ledger is transparent, auditable, and final. For institutions seeking a base layer that embodies the same assurances as Bitcoin, with the additional flexibility of the EVM, Ethereum Classic is the rational choice.
I believe ETC will emerge as a base layer for agentic systems like a2a ap2, decentralized custodial networks, and proof-of-work–anchored Layer 2s. Developers and enterprises alike will build bridges and rollups to leverage its finality and its neutrality. Privacy preserving apps will flourish without censorship. In a world increasingly reliant on synthetic intelligence and automated actors, the need for an incorruptible execution layer will only grow. Proof of work will remain the standard of integrity.
No system can thrive without an economy that rewards those who maintain and advance it. I believe in a community-governed treasury, funded transparently through protocol-level mechanisms. The base fee model offers a path forward, a portion of transaction fees can support ongoing development, infrastructure maintenance, and ecosystem grants. This isn’t charity. This is self-preservation.
A network that rewards builders, researchers, educators, and infrastructure providers ensures its own longevity. Governance should not rest with a foundation that claims neutrality while wielding control. Instead, ETC’s treasury can be managed through decentralized, auditable proposals; allowing the community itself to decide which initiatives deserve funding. This balance between autonomy and accountability is the next logical step in our evolution.
To move forward, we must make decisions with discipline. First, we must agree on what defines the next era both in name and in purpose. Whether the next fork is called Olympia or something else, it must symbolize more than a software upgrade. It must mark a cultural renewal. We need to align on scope, prioritize security, and adopt a structured process to agree, build, test, and release. That cycle (ie transparent, predictable, and repeatable) will build the trust of institutions and miners alike.
The work ahead is not glamorous, it is essential. Every 14 seconds, the network fights for its life. Each block mined is a reaffirmation of belief. A heartbeat powered by thousands of machines and the people who run them. We cannot afford complacency. We owe it to the miners who secure the chain, to the developers who maintain it, and to the investors who believe in it to keep advancing with clarity and conviction.
My vision is of a world where humans and autonomous agents coexist in digital economies safeguarded by cryptography. In that world, what we now call “a node” becomes fully modular: a combination of consensus, execution, and intelligence layers cooperating seamlessly. Ethereum Classic can serve as the security backbone of that future, anchoring distributed systems with the same honesty that defined its birth.
I see a future where ETC can be a reference point for institutional custody and digital asset integrity. A chain respected for its security, its simplicity, and its refusal to compromise on first principles. A place where miners, developers, and investors work in unison to maintain an incorruptible record of human and machine interaction. Ethereum Classic’s story has always been one of resilience. We were forged in conflict, sustained by conviction, and defined by proof. Now, we have the opportunity to evolve into the secure backbone for the next generation of decentralized systems.
Immutability was our origin. Sovereignty is our future. Evolution is our path.
Forward, we must always move relentlessly forward.
This personal opinion was written with real human thumbs by:
Cody (dontpanic) Burns
forker of chains, decentralized troll emperor
written around block 23213619 bh:0xc96bc8304a64f6b6ce8d2ba693d2a6a8bcd061fb8ce0ab88fb882d96d2fea303
