Network upgrades, client releases, and protocol changes
Olympia is the most significant protocol upgrade in Ethereum Classic's history — delivering EIP-1559, Fusaka EVM parity, a protocol-native treasury, on-chain DAO governance, futarchy prediction markets, and miner distribution improvements in a single coordinated activation. This is a complete overview of what Olympia is, how it works, and why it matters.
The Gorgoroth Trials testing campaign launched to validate multi-client compatibility between Fukuii, Core-Geth, and Besu ahead of the Olympia network upgrade.
The Olympia network upgrade will bring EIP-1559 fee markets, a community treasury funded by the basefee, and Cancun/Fusaka EVM equivalence to Ethereum Classic.
The Ethereum Classic community began formal review of the Olympia upgrade ECIPs, proposing EIP-1559 fee markets, a non-inflationary treasury, and on-chain governance.
Six months after activation, the Spiral network upgrade has brought EVM parity with Ethereum's Shanghai execution layer to Ethereum Classic without incident.
At block 20,000,001, Ethereum Classic enters its fifth monetary era, reducing block rewards from 2.56 ETC to 2.048 ETC per block.
Ethereum Classic activated Spiral at block 19,250,000 on February 5, 2024, adopting Shanghai execution-layer EIPs including PUSH0 and warm COINBASE.
At block 15,000,001, Ethereum Classic enters Era 4 of its monetary policy, reducing block rewards from 3.2 ETC to 2.56 ETC per block.
Ethereum Classic activated Mystique at block 14,525,000 on February 12, 2022, implementing selected London EIPs while deliberately omitting EIP-1559.
Ethereum Classic activates the Mystique network upgrade at block 14,525,000, implementing selected London EIPs while deliberately omitting EIP-1559.
Ethereum Classic activated Magneto at block 13,189,133 on July 23, 2021, introducing typed transactions, access lists, and the cold/warm state access model.
Ethereum Classic activated Thanos at block 11,700,000 on November 28, 2020, doubling the DAG epoch length to keep 4GB GPUs mining and establishing the Etchash algorithm.
Ethereum Classic activated Phoenix at block 10,500,839 on June 1, 2020, achieving full Istanbul EVM equivalence after the Aztlan governance crisis.
At block 10,000,001, Ethereum Classic enters Era 3 of its monetary policy, reducing block rewards from 4 ETC to 3.2 ETC per block.
Ethereum Classic activated Agharta at block 9,573,000 on January 12, 2020, adding bitwise shifting, CREATE2, and EXTCODEHASH.
Ethereum Classic launches Mordor, a dedicated proof-of-work testnet using the ETChash algorithm, providing developers with an accurate testing environment.
Ethereum Classic activated Atlantis at block 8,772,000 on September 12, 2019, closing a two-year EVM gap with 10 Byzantium EIPs.
At block 5,900,000 on May 29, 2018, ECIP-1041 permanently removed the exponential difficulty bomb, affirming ETC's commitment to proof-of-work consensus.
Ethereum Classic implemented ECIP-1017 and ECIP-1039, establishing a fixed monetary policy with 20% block reward reductions every 5 million blocks and a maximum supply of approximately 210.7 million ETC.
At block 5,000,000, Ethereum Classic activates its fixed monetary policy via the Gotham hard fork, reducing block rewards from 5 ETC to 4 ETC.
ECIP-1017 introduces a fixed monetary policy for Ethereum Classic with a hard supply cap of approximately 210.7 million ETC and a 20% emission reduction every 5 million blocks.
At block 3,000,000 on January 13, 2017, Die Hard established ETC's protocol sovereignty with replay protection (Chain ID 61), difficulty bomb delay, and state trie cleanup.
At block 1,150,000 on March 14, 2016, Homestead moved the network from beta to production with DELEGATECALL, tightened transaction rules, and P2P forward compatibility.
At block 200,000 on September 7, 2015, the Frontier Thawing upgrade unlocked the gas limit, enabling practical smart contract deployment for the first time.
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