The Ethereum Classic community has announced Olympia, the next major network upgrade. Olympia will adopt EIP-1559 fee markets with a unique modification: instead of burning the basefee, it will be directed to a community treasury for ecosystem funding.
Key Changes
EIP-1559 Fee Market with Treasury Redirect
Olympia implements EIP-1559's dynamic basefee mechanism, which replaces the first-price auction fee model with predictable, algorithmically-adjusted gas prices. On Ethereum, the basefee is burned (permanently destroyed). On ETC, the basefee will be redirected to a community treasury contract (ECIP-1112), preserving the fixed monetary policy established by ECIP-1017 while funding ecosystem development.
EVM Equivalence
Olympia brings Cancun execution-layer EIPs to ETC, maintaining the network's track record of selective EVM alignment. PoS-specific changes are omitted as usual.
Multi-Client Activation
Three independent client implementations are preparing for Olympia:
- Core-Geth (Go) — primary reference client
- Hyperledger Besu (Java) — enterprise-grade alternative
- Fukuii (Scala) — new client in development
Treasury Funding Mechanism
The treasury is funded exclusively by the EIP-1559 basefee — not by block rewards. This preserves the ECIP-1017 emission schedule. The basefee amount varies with network demand, providing sustainable funding that scales with actual network usage.
Activation
Olympia will activate on the Mordor testnet first, followed by ETC mainnet. Activation block numbers will be announced after multi-client testing is complete.
Governance
Treasury fund allocation will be governed by the Olympia decentralized governance framework, ensuring that spending decisions are made by ETC stakeholders rather than any single organization.