ECIP-1098 Proto Treasury
ECIP-1098 was IOHK's formal Proto Treasury System proposal. After a year of community debate, both ETC Coop and IOHK withdrew support. The IOHK Grothendieck team wound down following the withdrawal.
ECIP-1098 Proto Treasury System
ECIP Status: Withdrawn
Discussion Period: 2020–2021
Outcome: Withdrawn — IOHK and ETC Coop withdrew support
Overview
ECIP-1098 was IOHK's formal proposal for a protocol-level treasury system on Ethereum Classic, succeeding the earlier ECIP-1051 discussions. The proposal would have funded development through block reward diversion with on-chain governance for fund allocation. After a year of community debate about whether a network-level treasury aligned with ETC's principles, both ETC Coop and IOHK withdrew their support in September 2021. The IOHK Grothendieck team subsequently wound down.
Timeline
- 2020: IOHK submitted ECIP-1098 following the ECIP-1051 discussions and 51% attack crisis
- 2020–2021: Year-long community debate on treasury design, governance, and compatibility with ETC values
- September 2021: ETC Coop withdrew support, followed by IOHK
- Post-withdrawal: The IOHK Grothendieck team (Mantis client developers) announced wind-down
Key Issues
- Block reward diversion — Like ECIP-1051, the proto treasury relied on diverting block rewards, conflicting with ECIP-1017's fixed monetary policy
- Governance complexity — On-chain governance for fund allocation introduced centralization vectors that the community considered incompatible with ETC's principles
- Loss of development resources — The withdrawal and subsequent Grothendieck wind-down reduced ETC's active development capacity
- Legacy — The rejection of both ECIP-1051 and ECIP-1098 established that ETC would not implement block reward-funded treasuries. The Olympia treasury (ECIP-1112) took a fundamentally different approach: redirecting EIP-1559 basefee to the treasury instead of diverting block rewards, preserving the monetary policy