On July 11, 2016 — just days before the contentious DAO fork — a document appeared that would define the philosophical core of Ethereum Classic. The Crypto-Decentralist Manifesto, written by Arvicco, articulated why decentralization matters and what a truly decentralized blockchain must protect.
Core Principles
The manifesto argues that blockchains are most useful as decentralized systems, and that true decentralization requires protecting three properties:
Open Architecture
The protocol rules must be fully transparent and open source. Anyone can run a node, send transactions, and verify the chain's state without permission from any authority.
Neutrality
The protocol must treat all participants equally. No transaction can be censored, no account can be frozen, and no rule change can be imposed by a minority — no matter how well-intentioned.
Immutability
The blockchain's history is inviolable. Completed transactions cannot be reversed, and the ledger cannot be rewritten. This is not merely a technical preference but a fundamental property that gives blockchains their value.
Why It Mattered
The manifesto was published during the most contentious period in Ethereum's history. The DAO had been exploited, and the community was debating whether to modify the blockchain to reverse the exploit's effects. The manifesto articulated why some community members believed that rewriting history — even to fix a clear wrong — would undermine the very properties that make blockchains valuable.
Legacy
When the DAO fork occurred on July 20, 2016, the community members who rejected the irregular state change coalesced around these principles. The Crypto-Decentralist Manifesto became one of Ethereum Classic's foundational documents, alongside the Declaration of Independence.
The full text remains available at ethereumclassic.com.