Ethereum Launches
Vitalik Buterin and The Ethereum Foundation create the first blockchain-based turing-complete smart contract platform with the Frontier release
Roadmap
This page outlines the history of Ethereum Classic and it's future development goals.
ETC Timeline
A historical account of the formative events that created and defined Ethereum Classic.
Jul 30 2015
Block 200,000
Frontier Thawing Upgrade
September 08 2015, the network implements an ‘Ice Age’ at block 200,000 introducing the Difficulty Bomb, a mechanism designed to move the network's consensus mechanism away from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake
Block 1,150,000
Homestead Upgrade
March 15 2016, Homestead is the second major version release of the Ethereum platform
Apr 05 2016
Slock.it Creates TheDAO
Slock.it construct TheDAO Ethereum Contract; a security audit is completed by Dejavu
Apr 30 2016
TheDAO Crowdsale Begins
TheDAO smart contract is deployed; members of the public send it value in return for DAO tokens
May 26 2016
Security Proposal
Slock.it announce a $1.5 Million USD proposal, paid in Ether by the crowdfund, 'to guarantee the integrity of The DAO'
May 27 2016
Moratorium Called
On the last day of the crowdsale, DAO curator Vlad Zamfir calls for a moratorium on TheDAO, citing many game-theoretical security issues
May 27 2016
TheDAO Crowdsale Ends
The crowdsale completes to become the world's largest and raising an incredible $150 Million USD
Jun 09 2016
Recursive Call Bug Discovered
Peter Vessenes publicly discloses the existence of a critical security vulnerability overlooked in many Solidiy contracts
Jun 12 2016
No Funds at Risk
Stephan Tual publicly claims that TheDAO funds are safe despite the newly-discovered critical security flaw
Jun 17 2016
TheDAO is Hacked
Ether is slowly and silently drained from TheDAO as the re-entry bug is applied
Jun 17 2016
Panic Hits the Markets
The price of Ether is slashed in half as Griff Green announces that TheDAO has been hacked
Jun 17 2016
The Countdown Begins
TheDAO's splitting mechanism gives around a month for a solution to be found that recovers the funds; Foundation and community developers race to implement a soft fork
Jun 21 2016
Robin Hood Group Announced
A group of 'white-hat' hackers secure 70% of TheDAO funds but protocol-level action is required to save the remaining 30% split by the hacker
Jun 24 2016
DAO Wars: Soft Fork Vote
The Ethereum Foundation releases a 'Soft Fork' client to censor transactions coming from the hacker; mining pools vote to enable it by lowering gas limit
Jun 28 2016
Soft Fork Vulnerability
Critical Denial of Service flaws are found in the Soft Fork implementation, miners quickly decide NOT to use it
Jun 28 2016
Hard Fork Debate
Many days of intense arguing goes on in the Ethereum community about the pros and cons of implementing a Hard Fork
Jul 15 2016
Hard Fork Spec Announced
The only remaining option is a controversial Hard Fork. A Specification is determined and announced by Slock.it and Ethereum Foundation members
Jul 15 2016
Last Minute Carbonvote
With 12 hours notice, The Ethereum Foundation use a controversial third party 'coin vote' to determine that the Hard Fork should be turned on by default; consensus is declared and an updated client is released
Block 1,920,000
DAO Bailout Hard Fork
July 20 2016, with around 80% of nodes updating to the new client, the community nervously await the arrival of the DAO Bailout fork activation block 1,920,000
Block 1,920,001
New Fork Chain
A forked-chain is born! The Ethereum Foundation creates an altered version of Ethereum on July 20 2016 to reverse the DAO theft. As trademark rights holders, the Ethereum Foundation applies the Ethereum (ETH) brand to the new forked chain
Block 1,920,001
Original Non-Fork Chain
With predictions of the original non-forked chain to disappear within hours, many are surprised to find that miners continue to support the original chain. Bisq and OTC desks give these tokens a price discovery orderbook. The markets participants rebrand this non-forked chain Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Jul 20 2016
Mission Accomplished!
The ETH community lets out a sigh of relief as the DAO fork code is succesfully implemented with no obvious flaws; champagne corks are popped all over the globe. The birth of a new chain is a success!
Jul 23 2016
Poloniex Lists ETC
The largest Ethereum exchange signals long-term support for the original chain, Poloniex lists ETC. Many exchanges quickly follow suit.
Jul 23 2016
Ethereans Fracture
The Flame Wars begin in subreddits. As economically-charged vitriolic spats begin to take hold of the participants as it comes to terms with the reality of the split
Jul 24 2016
Ethereum Classic Supporters
The Ethereum Classic supporters branch off from Ethereum subreddits and form their own social channels
Jul 27 2016
Geth Supports Ethereum Classic
Geth releases support for Ethereum Classic network. This node has all the DAO code removed from the client and requires no additional flags to use the Ethereum classic network
Jul 31 2016
Parity Supports Ethereum Classic
Parity signals long term support for Etheruem Classic with 1.2.3 release that addresses network stability issues for both Ethereum HF and Ethereum classic chains and brings a few changes to the transaction tracing API
Jul 31 2016
51% Attack Threat
ETH supporters form a mining pool called 51Pool.org with plans to destroy the ETC network by orchestrating a 51% attack
Aug 01 2016
Miners Support ETC
After the ETC network grew to a point where they could no longer attack it, ETH miners publicly declare not to attack ETC. To prevent hurting innocent Ethereum Classic holders, ETH miners commit resources to mining ETC.
Aug 10 2016
RHG Attacks ETC
The Robin Hood Group attempts to market dump a large quantity of stolen ETC from the DAO fork. Poloniex freezes their funds
Block 2,050,000
Classic Declares Independence
After relentless attacks from the ETH side of the chain split, Ethereum Classic supporters stand firm and declare their independence from the new ETH chain
Aug 18 2016
Battle Tested and Resilient
Ethereum Classic proves its resilience to the markets as ETC emerges from the ETH attacks with a stabalizing price. The networks core principles are galvanized during the DAO Bailout. Supporters begin rebuilding from the ashes
Aug 31 2016
DAO Funds Unlock on ETC
Millions of previously locked or frozen ETC become available to DAO token holders and the DAO hacker. ETC's price holds remarkably well in face of huge market dumps
Sep 09 2016
Code is Law
During the ETH attacks, many battle cries come out of Ethereum Classic supporters. They begin to clarify their core principles and validate the ETC network existance to the general public
Block 2,500,000
Gas Reprice Upgrade
October 24 2016, both Ethereum networks are attacked due to vulnerabilities in the tech stack. ETC devs quickly ensure a smooth and uncontentious network upgrade to patch exploited vulnerabilities
Nov 01 2016
ETC Monetary Policy
Ethereum Classic supporters debate ETC's emission schedule and monetary policy
Block 3,000,000
Die Hard Upgrade
January 13 2017, ETC addresses replay attacks and delays the difficulty bomb in a network upgrade
Mar 01 2017
Monetary Policy Consensus
Ethereum Classic forms consensus around a 210.7M ETC fixed-cap monetary policy with a Bitcoin-inspired limited emission schedule called 5M20; 20% block reward reduction every 5M blocks.
Mar 01 2017
ETCG Investment Fund
Grayscale launches the first non-bitcoin crypto fund enabling traditional investors to add ETC to their portfolio with the all the tax benefits of a traditional investment asset
Aug 08 2017
Mantis Launch
The release of this beta client, Mantis, will take place today and is the culmination of seven months of work by the Grothendieck Team, the IOHK developers dedicated to Ethereum Classic
Sep 2017
ETC Cooperative Team
Grayscale signals long-term support for Ethereum Classic protocol development by sponsoring the ETC Cooperative team with a portion of their ETCG management fees. Donations to the non-profit are tax-deductable
Block 5,000,000
Gotham Upgrade
December 11 2017, the Gotham upgrade established a predictable monetary policy and emission schedule inspired by Bitcoin. 5M20, the block reward will reduce by 20% every 5M blocks
Block 5,000,001
5M20 Era 2
December 11 2017, Ethereum Classic's 5M20 emission schedule enters Era 2. Block rewards are reduced by 20% to 4 ETC per block
Apr 08 2018
Multi-Geth Launch
The Multi-Geth client project launches. This is a go-ethereum client forked from Ethereum Foundation's version, aimed to follow closely for upstream changes, and support multiple Ethereum networks. We have just added alpha support for Ethereum Classic network. And we're grateful if the Ethereum Classic community is interested in testing it out
Block 5,900,000
Defuse Difficulty Bomb
May 29 2018, ETC safely disables the difficulty bomb to switch the original Ethereum project to PoS. Ethereum Classic signals long-term commitment to PoW as a network consensus mechanism
Jun 2018
ETC Labs Team
Ethereum Classic Labs provides funding, industry connections, and office space to burgeoning ETC projects; with office space in San Francisco and Singapore
Sep 08 2018
Kotti Launches
ETC Cooperative funds the development of the Kotti testnet, a Proof-of-Authority testnet constructed to provide interoperability testing with sister-chain ETH's Görli Testnet. PoA becomes the preferred testnet environment for dapp development testing
Sep 12 2018
ETC Summit 2018
The second annual Ethereum Classic conference is held in Seoul, South Korea
Oct 01 2018
Coinbase Lists ETC
The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the USA signals long-term support for the original Ethereum chain; Ethereum Classic
Oct 25 2018
Incubator Program Launch
Ethereum Classic Labs launches an incubator program. ETC Labs commits to work with as many as 24 Ethereum Classic based startups each year
Jan 08 2019
51% Attack
Ethereum Classic experiences the first successful chain reorganization attack on its network. The resilient ETC rises from the ashes.
Jan 13 2019
Whitehat Attacker
The 51% attacker appears to be a whitehat hacker and returns stolen funds to a compromised exchange. Exchanges tighten 51% attack monitoring on PoW coins
Jun 20 2019
Atlantis Rough Consensus
Ethereum Classic core developers reach rough consensus on ECIP-1054 in an effort to implement ETH's Spurious Dragon and Byzantium network protocol upgrades
Block 8,772,000
Atlantis Upgrade
September 12 2019, Ethereum Classic core developers implement ETH's Spurious Dragon and Byzantium network protocol upgrades to maintain operational parity with its sister chain
Oct 04 2019
Mordor Launches
Core developers removed testnet redundancy by replacing Kensington, Morden, and Nazgul test networks with Mordor, an Ethash PoW testnet for protocol level testing
Nov 12 2019
Besu Supports Ethereum Classic
Hyperledger Besu adds Ethereum Classic support to their Ethereum client designed to be enterprise-friendly for both public and private permissioned network use cases
Dec 05 2019
Aztlán Rough Consensus
Ethereum Classic core developers reach rough consensus on ECIP-1061 in an effort to implement ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade
Dec 12 2019
Agharta Rough Consensus
Ethereum Classic core developers reach rough consensus on ECIP-1056 in an effort to implement ETH's Constaninople and Petersburg network protocol upgrades
Block 9,573,000
Agharta Upgrade
January 11 2020, Ethereum Classic core developers implement ETH's Constaninople and Petersburg network protocol upgrades to maintain operational parity with its sister chain
Feb 03 2020
Core-Geth Launch
The ETC Core team forks away from the Multi-Geth client project. The project is named Core-Geth, an ethereum/go-ethereum downstream effort to make the Ethereum Protocol accessible and extensible for a diverse ecosystem
Feb 05 2020
Phoenix Fix Rough Consensus
During Aztlán testnet implementations, Ethereum Classic core developers discover complications with ECIP 1061 specs to add ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade. As intended, the ETC testnets catch the issues and core developers spec a patch for the issues
Feb 12 2020
ECIP 1050 Status Codes
ECIP 1050 Status Codes moves to Final status. This standard outlines a common set of Status Codes in the same vein as HTTP statuses. This provides a shared set of signals to allow smart contracts to react to situations autonomously, expose localized error messages to users, and so on
Feb 20 2020
Testnets Catch Bugs
During Aztlán testnet implementations, Ethereum Classic core developers discover complications with ECIP 1061 and 1078 specs to add ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade. Meowbits of ETC Core documents the findings. As intended, the ETC testnets catch the issues and core developers go back to the drawing board
Feb 26 2020
Aztlán Rejected
Based on the issues discovered during Aztlán testnet implementation, Phoenix Fix being found to not be a sufficient fix and both testnets breaking; the Core developers proposes to reject ecips-1061, 1078, 1086 due to security and stability concerns and to move on with writing a new proposal from scratch
Feb 26 2020
Phoenix Rough Consensus
Ethereum Classic core developers reach rough consensus on ECIP-1088 in an effort to implement ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade. Testnet implementations revealed issues with prior attempts in specs ECIP-1061 and ECIP-1078
Mar 09 2020
Phoenix Mordor Testing
Phoenix testing begins on the Mordor PoW testnet on block 999,983. Core development teams have signaled that this is a complex implementation. Testing may uncover issues that delay this network upgrade, but Ethereum Classic will never rush to upgrade the mainnet. Network security is priority over development speed and arbitary timelines
Block 10,000,001
5M20 Era 3
March 17 2020, Ethereum Classic's block rewards are reduced by 20% to 3.2 ETC per block per the bitcoin-inspired 5M20 emission schedule
Apr 15 2020
Phoenix Kotti Testing
Phoenix testing begins on the Kotti PoA testnet on block 2,200,013. Core development teams have signaled that this is a complex implementation. Testing may uncover issues that delay this network upgrade, but Ethereum Classic will never rush to upgrade the mainnet. Network security is priority over development speed and arbitary timelines
Block 10,500,839
Phoenix Upgrade
June 03 2020, Ethereum Classic core developers implement ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrades to maintain operational parity with its sister chain
Future
A Bright Future
As the ecosystem continues to organically grow, the independent development teams are guided by principles that make Ethereum Classic such a unique network. The network is truly decentralized, immutable, and unstoppable. Review the roadmap to learn about the promising future of Ethereum Classic, the original Ethereum chain...
Drag to progress (or hold shift and wheel)!
Final ECIPs
These ECIPs (Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposals) have been accepted and have or will be implemented soon.
| Number | Title | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1010 | Delay Difficulty Bomb Explosion | Igor Artamonov |
| 1015 | Long-term gas cost changes for IO-heavy operations to mitigate transaction spam attacks | Cody W Burns |
| 1017 | Monetary Policy and Final Modification to the Ethereum Classic Emission Schedule | Matthew Mazur |
| 1039 | Monetary policy rounding specification | Isaac Ardis |
| 1041 | Remove Difficulty Bomb | Igor Artamonov |
| 1048 | Clique proof-of-authority consensus protocol | Péter Szilágyi |
| 1050 | Status Codes | Brooklyn Zelenka, Boris Mann |
| 1054 | Atlantis EVM and Protocol Upgrades | Isaac Ardis |
| 1056 | Agharta EVM and Protocol Upgrades | Isaac Ardis, Wei Tang |
| 1088 | Phoenix EVM and Protocol Upgrades | Raw Pong Ghmoa |
Development Roadmap 2020
An outline of important protocol development milestones for the year of 2020, including highlights from the ETC Core 2020 Roadmap.
Q1
Ethereum Classic core developers maintain rough consensus for the collaborative effort of achieving operational parity with sister chain Ethereum (ETH).
January 10
The ETC Cooperative to help contribute to the codebase of Vyper in collaboration with Ben Hauser who implemented the changes necessary into Vyper in order to allow us to target multiple versions of the EVM in order to have it working with ETC.
January 11
Ethereum Classic core developers implement ETH's Constaninople and Petersburg network protocol upgrades to maintain operational parity with its sister chain.
January 31
Second State, Vyperlang, and other teams are implementing or experimenting in bringing LLVM infrastructure to the EthereumStack. This is an alpha version of the EVM LLVM. It includes the complete, working LLVM backend pipeline for generating EVM binaries. Optimizations are limited. https://github.com/etclabscore/evm_llvm/releases/tag/v0.5_alpha
February 4
CoreGeth: An Ethereum Protocol Provider. Priority is given to reducing opinions around chain configuration, IP-based feature implementations, and API predictability. Upstream development from ethereum/go-ethereum is merged to this repository regularly, usually at every upstream tagged release. Every effort is made to maintain seamless compatibility with upstream source, including compatible RPC, JS, and CLI APIs, data storage locations and schemas, and, of course, interoperable node protocols. Applicable bug reports, bug fixes, features, and proposals should be made upstream whenever possible.
February 12
ECIP 1050: Status Codes moves to Final status. This standard outlines a common set of Status Codes in the same vein as HTTP statuses. This provides a shared set of signals to allow smart contracts to react to situations autonomously, expose localized error messages to users, and so on. https://ecips.ethereumclassic.org/ECIPs/ecip-1050
February 20
During Aztlán testnet implementations, Ethereum Classic core developers discover complications with ECIP 1061 and 1078 specs to add ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade. Meowbits of ETC Core documents the findings. As intended, the ETC testnets catch the issues and core developers go back to the drawing board.
February 26
Ethereum Classic core developers reach rough consensus on ECIP-1088 in an effort to implement ETH's Istanbul network protocol upgrade. Testnet implementations revealed issues with prior attempts in specs ECIP-1061 and ECIP-1078.
March 4
Core-Geth implements block activation values for ECIP1088, Ethereum Classic's planned Phoenix hard fork upgrade. Please upgrade to version v1.11.0 or later for Phoenix support for ETC. https://github.com/etclabscore/core-geth/releases
March 9
Phoenix testing begins on the Mordor PoW testnet on block 999,983. Core development teams have signaled that this is a complex implementation. Testing may uncover issues that delay this network upgrade, but Ethereum Classic will never rush to upgrade the mainnet. Network security is priority over development speed and arbitary timelines. https://expedition.dev/?network=mordor
March 12
Hyperledger Besu implemented ECIP-1088: Phoenix EVM and Protocol upgrades. Please upgrade to version v1.4.1 or later for Phoenix support for ETC. https://github.com/hyperledger/besu/releases
March 14
Developer bounty platform Gitcoin has partnered with Ethereum Classic Labs to offer bounties in ETC.
March 17
March 17 2020, Ethereum Classic's block rewards are reduced by 20% to 3.2 ETC per block per the bitcoin-inspired 5M20 emission schedule.
March 20
The Kotti PoA testnet is successfully recovered after Aztlán implementations. The signers coordinate and regain consensus in anticipation for a successful Phoenix implementation. https://expedition.dev/?network=kotti
March 31
EthereumClassic.org website modernization project goes live with updated 2020 content. https://ethereumclassic.org/blog
Q2
EthereumClassic.org website modernization project goes live with a goal of providing accurate ETC content and automated information dissemination lines to the greater cryptocurrency ecosystem. https://ethereumclassic.org/news
April 3
EthereumClassic.org website modernization project goes live with the Phoenix theme. https://ethereumclassic.org
April 5
Multi-Geth implements support for the Phoenix hard fork on Ethereum Classic mainnet, at block 10,500,839, scheduled around the beginning of June, 2020. Please upgrade to version v1.9.14 or later for Phoenix support for ETC. https://github.com/multi-geth/multi-geth/releases
April 15
Phoenix testing begins on the Kotti PoA testnet on block 2,200,013. Core development teams have signaled that this is a complex implementation. Testing may uncover issues that delay this network upgrade, but Ethereum Classic will never rush to upgrade the mainnet. Network security is priority over development speed and arbitary timelines. https://expedition.dev/?network=mordor
Q2
Improve ETC specific documentation and add to the website for end user consumption. https://ethereumclassic.org/development/guides
May
Core development teams have signaled that this upgrade has successfully passed testing analysis on the Mordor and Kotti testnets. Ethereum Classic will never rush to upgrade the mainnet. Network security is priority over development speed and arbitary timelines. The ETC miners, wallets, exchanges, payment processors begin updated their clients for the Phoenix Upgrade. https://medium.com/etc-core/top-miners-confirmed-to-support-phoenix-ethereum-classic-hard-fork-phoenix-status-update-bc8964424fd4
June 3
Phoenix activates on Ethereum Classic mainnet on block 10,500,839. Core development teams have signaled that this upgrade has successfully passed testing analysis on the Mordor and Kotti testnets. https://blockscout.com/etc/mainnet
Q2
Reach out to the non-english ETC social channels to translate the English version of https://ethereumclassic.org/
Q3
LLVM Instruction scheduler and performance optimizations
Q3
Add Connext state channels support. The goal is to have Connext ETC channels live in 2020.
Q3
JSON-RPC devp2p Wire protocol specification and reference implementation research and possible design
Q3
Add fork monitor and ethstats dashboards to EthereumClassic.org
Q3
Long-term Development Resources Discussion: Public Good Network Protocols, Fund Disbursement Methods, DAO fund allocation.
Q3
Updates to ECIP process via ECIP-1000 discussion
Q3
Work on 1-2 major technical projects that use ETC as a part of developer marketing
Q3
Review Ethereum Berlin for operational parity with Ethereum Classic.
Q3
Gas Range Discussion: Upper and Lower Bounds
Q4
Astor experimental testnet SHA3 consensus algo research review
Q4
EVM-LLVM Official beta release
Q4
EVM-LLVM Implementation: Embedded assembly and exception handling
Q4
Successful upgrade of the ETC network to a further hardfork in Q4 2020 (unless delayed) which will address the remaining blockers to ETC being considered feature complete
Q4
ETL Tooling patterns and research into providing support for cross-chain transaction transforms
Q4
Attract 5 prestige anchor tenant projects from the Ethereum ecosystem. Note that attendence at conferences will level off after Q1 due to Coronavirus
Q4
Mining Algorithm Discussion: Astor SHA3 Change, DAG reduction, No Change
Q4
Interoperability Projects: Port over ETH network protocols. Build ETH<>ETC bridges
Q4
FlyClients Discussion
Q4
Interoperability Market Capture. ETC added to more products increase access/utility for ETC. Onboard stabelcoins and dapps. Build the foundation for DeFi on hard-money ETC
Q4
Establish a Specifications Ring within Ethereum Magicians and to gather stakeholders from ETH, ETC and EEA there
Q4
Deliver a modular specification for Ethereum by the end of 2020 (probably via the EEA with input from Ethereum Magicians group) which spans ETH, ETC and EEA requirements
Q4
Implement a grant program with documentation, standards, and reporting requirements