Core Development Governance
Binding On-Chain Protocol Governance
Five stages from proposal submission to on-chain execution. Core protocol decisions — client software upgrades, infrastructure contracts, security bounties, treasury allocations, and emergency responses — are governed by the Olympia DAO through the OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x framework. No hiring manager, no employment contract, no preferred vendor. Any EVM developer worldwide can submit a proposal, compete for funded work, and earn payment on delivery. The protocol governs itself.
Propose
Any ETC account can submit a funding proposal on-chain. Proposals define the funding request, the rationale, and the scope of work.
Vote
Members vote on-chain during a defined voting period using non-transferable membership NFTs. Votes are transparent and immutable. Voting mechanics are governed by the OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x contract suite.
Queue
Approved proposals enter a configurable security timelock. This delay gives the community time to review and react before execution is triggered.
Execute
After the timelock expires, proposals execute on-chain without manual intervention. Treasury transfers and governance actions are fully auditable.
Disclose
All outcomes are publicly recorded and independently verifiable. Proposal execution records, treasury movements, and governance decisions form a permanent on-chain record.
Futarchy Markets
Open Prediction Markets and Public Signal
Open to anyone, no membership required. Anyone can open a prediction market on a proposed protocol outcome, stake on the result, and earn financial rewards for accurate predictions. Market participants bring new users onto ETC, generating transaction volume that flows as basefee revenue into the Olympia Treasury. This creates a self-reinforcing loop: public participation funds the protocol it is predicting on. Market prices become on-chain signal that informs future governance decisions and holds the DAO publicly accountable to stakeholders who have real financial skin in the game.
Open
Anyone opens a prediction market on a proposed protocol outcome. No membership required.
Speculate
Public participants stake on outcomes, bringing new users onto ETC and generating transaction volume that flows as basefee revenue into the protocol treasury.
Resolve
Markets settle when the underlying governance event executes on-chain. Participants are financially rewarded for accurate predictions.
Signal
Market prices feed back as on-chain signal into future governance decisions, creating a self-reinforcing loop between public participation and core development capacity.
Network Participant Layer
Software Adoption as Governance Signal
Every node operator, mining pool, exchange, and wallet provider participates in governance through the client software they choose to run. When the DAO approves a protocol upgrade and independent client teams publish compatible releases, network adoption is the final step. An upgrade becomes real when the infrastructure that secures, settles, and routes ETC transactions upgrades to support it. No membership required, no market position to open — running the software is the governance act.
DAO Approval
Olympia DAO votes to approve a protocol upgrade through the on-chain governance process. Proposals require quorum and majority to pass.
Client Releases
Independent client teams publish compatible implementations of the approved upgrade. Multiple implementations ensure no single point of failure.
Network Adoption
Miners, exchanges, wallets, and node operators upgrade their software. Each participant signals support by running the new implementation.
Distributed Consensus
The upgrade achieves activation when the broader network has adopted the new software — distributed participation across all three tiers made real.
Treasury Funding
The Olympia Treasury is funded by basefee revenue — the portion of every transaction fee that was set to be destroyed under EIP-1559. Block rewards and tips go entirely to miners unchanged. No new issuance, no tax on mining income, no inflation. The treasury grows proportionally with network activity: more transactions, more basefee, more development capacity. Voluntary on-chain contributions from exchanges, custodians, miners, investment product issuers, and individuals add to that base. Futarchy prediction market activity generates additional transaction volume that further compounds the basefee flywheel.
Basefee revenue funds the Olympia Treasury
Block rewards and tips remain completely untouched and go entirely to miners. The treasury receives basefee revenue, voluntary on-chain donations, and mining rewards directed to the treasury address. Futarchy prediction market activity generates additional transaction volume that flows back into the treasury as basefee revenue — creating a self-reinforcing funding loop alongside governance signal.
Basefee Revenue
EIP-1559 basefee is removed from every transaction and directed to the treasury automatically. The primary funding source grows proportionally with network activity — more transactions, more development capacity.
Automatic · EIP-1559 · Primary Source
On-Chain Donations
Any stakeholder worldwide can contribute directly with a single transaction. Exchanges, custodians, investment product issuers, DeFi protocols, and individual holders. Tax-advantaged contributions route through the ETC Cooperative.
Permissionless · Any Amount · Any Wallet
Mining Contributions
Miners can direct a portion of block rewards to the treasury address. Block rewards and tips otherwise go entirely to miners — no mandatory contribution, no impact on mining economics.
Optional · Block Rewards · Miner Choice
Funding Flow
Transactions
Users and markets pay gas fees
Fee Revenue
Basefee + donations + mining
Treasury
Protocol-managed vault
Governance
Olympia DAO proposals
Ecosystem
Development funding
Futarchy markets generate basefee revenue that feeds back into the treasury — self-reinforcing
Who Can Contribute
Every stakeholder has a direct path to the treasury
No organization to join, no application to submit, no preferred relationship required. Any participant with a stake in the network can contribute directly on-chain with a single transaction. Exchanges and custodians holding ETC on behalf of clients, miners directing a portion of block rewards to the treasury address, investment product issuers growing the on-chain funding base alongside their AUM, and individual holders sending any amount from any wallet worldwide. For contributions that benefit from tax-advantaged treatment, the ETC Cooperative accepts donations as a US 501(c)(3) non-profit and directs them to the Olympia Treasury.
Exchanges & Custodians
Direct on-chain contribution — no intermediaries, no overhead
Mining Operations
Direct hashpower to the treasury address alongside block rewards
Investment Product Issuers
ETCG holders and product issuers — direct wallet or treasury address
Individual Holders
Any wallet worldwide can contribute — a single on-chain transaction
ETC Cooperative
US 501(c)(3) non-profit accepting tax-deductible donations in any amount
Composable DeFi Protocols
RetroPGF — protocol fees and yield from application-layer primitives directed to the treasury address (Classic USD, ETCswap)
Safeguards
Three independent layers protect the integrity of every treasury action — each operating at a distinct checkpoint in the governance lifecycle, each providing a form of accountability the others cannot. Every treasury movement is publicly recorded and independently verifiable on-chain.
OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x
ECIP-1113Olympia governance is built on OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x — the most widely deployed on-chain governance framework in the EVM ecosystem, securing billions in protocol treasuries across Compound, Uniswap, Aave, and beyond. The full lifecycle — proposal submission, voting period, configurable security timelock, and automated on-chain execution — is enforced by audited contracts, not organizational policy. Multiple independent security audits, formally verified components, and years of adversarial mainnet exposure across the largest DeFi protocols make this the most battle-tested governance infrastructure available. Quorum thresholds, voting periods, and timelock delays are defined in code: no single party can override a vote, bypass the timelock, or execute a proposal that has not cleared the full on-chain process.
Institutional Compliance
ECIP-1119On-chain sanctions compliance embedded directly in the governance contracts gives institutions a clear path to contributing to the Olympia Treasury. Exchanges, custodians, mining operations, and investment product issuers can fund core client development, critical infrastructure, network security, and emergency protocol responses without legal exposure or off-chain organizational assurances. Compliance is enforced at three independent checkpoints — proposal submission, active voting, and execution — verified in the contract itself, not in a policy document or terms of service. The result is an open treasury that institutions can engage with confidently.
Public Signal Prediction Markets
ECIP-1117Futarchy prediction markets extend governance participation beyond the membership tier, generating a financially incentivized public signal alongside formal on-chain votes. Any participant can open a market on a proposed protocol outcome, stake capital on the result, and earn financial rewards for accurate predictions. Market prices aggregate real financial conviction from anyone willing to put capital behind their view — creating a live on-chain signal the DAO must weigh alongside vote counts. The markets generate transaction volume that flows as basefee revenue into the Olympia Treasury, creating a self-reinforcing loop between public participation and protocol funding capacity.
These three layers form the trust infrastructure that makes an open protocol treasury viable at institutional scale. Audited governance contracts enforce process integrity at every stage. On-chain compliance gives exchanges, custodians, and investment product issuers a verifiable path to participation. Public prediction markets extend accountability beyond the membership tier to any stakeholder willing to put capital behind their view.
Together they establish something that has not existed before in core blockchain development: a funding mechanism that is simultaneously permissionless, publicly auditable, and compliant with the standards that regulated institutions require. The governance framework is the floor — what gets built on it is open to every developer, institution, and stakeholder in the network.
Institutional Stewardship
Built on a Decade of Commitment
Olympia is the culmination of years of funded, principled stewardship by the organization that has kept Ethereum Classic's core development alive and moving forward.
View the full protocol development timelineThe ETC Cooperative
US 501(c)(3) Non-Profit · Core Dev Funder Since 2017 · Every Hard Fork Since Atlantis
Track Record
The ETC Cooperative comprises Ethereum Classic's earliest core contributors and is backed by its largest stakeholders. Since inception, the Cooperative has funded ETC's core client development, contributed millions toward every upgrade cycle since Atlantis, and carried the critical infrastructure service contracts that kept the network running when institutional support was scarce. Every hard fork, every client release, and every cross-client coordination effort was backed by their balance sheet.
The Transition
The operating model changes, not the commitment.
Olympia delivers on what the ETC Cooperative was built toward: the early vision of a Community Fund, the founding ETC principles of open development and programmable funding mechanisms, and the original mission of decentralizing the project itself. The Cooperative acted as the organization of last resort — carrying core development and infrastructure on a private balance sheet until the on-chain framework existed. Olympia is that framework.
The Ethereum Classic DAO LLC, a Wyoming-registered DAO LLC, handles what on-chain governance cannot directly execute: off-chain contracts, vendor agreements, regulatory reporting, and milestone disbursements that require a named legal counterparty. On-chain decisions, off-chain execution — bridging the Olympia governance layer to the operational requirements of a mature network.
What Opens Up
Core development is no longer gated behind a hiring manager or employment contract. Olympia opens the door to the entire EVM ecosystem: any developer worldwide can submit a proposal, bid competitively for funded work, and contribute on equal terms. Proposals, funding requests, emergency response, security bounties — all on-chain, auditable, and open to public participation.
ETC Cooperative continues as a foundational steward — focused on treasury fund health, institutional relationships, and growing the resources available to the network. Olympia is coming online as global regulatory frameworks are coalescing around Proof-of-Work networks simultaneously. A public, transparent, on-chain funding framework is precisely what compliance-oriented institutions require to engage confidently: auditable allocations, documented outcomes, no backroom relationships.
Grayscale Investments
ETCG Trust · Launched 2018 · Major Institutional Donor to ETC Cooperative
The Precedent
Grayscale pioneered regulated institutional access to blockchain networks, launching the Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust (ETCG) in 2018, years before Bitcoin ETFs existed as a product category. What made this particularly forward-looking was what came alongside it: Grayscale became a major institutional donor to the ETC Cooperative, indirectly funding the core client development of the network underpinning their product. No other investment product issuer was doing this at the time. What Grayscale was practicing on Ethereum Classic in 2018 is now a recognized industry trend — ETF issuers funding protocol development, corporate treasuries reinvesting in network ecosystems. They were years ahead of an industry that has only recently caught up.
The deeper point is who ETCG represents. Grayscale is the product issuer — but the capital base of the trust is a globally distributed pool of retail and institutional holders. The funding that reached ETC's core development through the Cooperative did not originate from a single centralized entity. It originated from a decentralized body of investors whose capital flows through the product to the network. ETC's development has been backed by decentralized funding all along — Grayscale provided the regulated access vehicle that made it possible.
With Olympia
Grayscale leads again.
From pioneering the institutional off-chain funding model to supporting the first Proof-of-Work network to take it fully on-chain. This is only possible on Ethereum Classic. Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin have no native smart contract functionality — their core development funding depends entirely on off-chain organizations, personal relationships, and institutional trust. Olympia DAO eliminates that dependency. Any stakeholder worldwide can contribute directly, without intermediaries, without preferred relationships, and without asking permission.
The ETF Pipeline
The timing of Olympia's activation aligns directly with the trust-to-ETF conversion pipeline Grayscale has established. As the ETCG trust moves toward ETF structure — following the precedent set with Bitcoin and Ethereum — a publicly auditable treasury provides the on-chain mechanism for ETF product issuers to contribute back to the network underpinning their product. For institutions and individuals seeking a tax-advantaged vehicle, the ETC Cooperative remains the conduit — a US 501(c)(3) non-profit that directs contributions to the Olympia Treasury. On-chain or off-chain, the destination is the same open treasury.
Frequently Asked Questions
Technical questions about how governance works, institutional questions about the DAO LLC structure and regulatory profile, and practical questions about who can participate and how the treasury is funded. If you are an exchange, custodian, investment product issuer, mining operation, or developer evaluating engagement with the Olympia ecosystem, the answers to the most common questions are here.
A DAO LLC is a legal entity recognized under Wyoming law that wraps a decentralized autonomous organization in a traditional corporate structure. It provides limited liability protection to members while preserving on-chain governance. Ethereum Classic DAO LLC was registered in Wyoming in 2025 (Filing ID 2025-001671865). The Wyoming DAO LLC executes on-chain decisions in the real world, including contracts, vendor agreements, and institutional relationships, on behalf of what the Olympia DAO approves on-chain.
Olympia is coordinated by the same developers, organizations, and community stewards who have delivered every Ethereum Classic network upgrade since 2016: Gotham, Die Hard, Defuse Difficulty Bomb, Thanos, and the full EVM compatibility series spanning Gas Reprice, Atlantis, Agharta, Phoenix, Magneto, Mystique, and Spiral. The ETC Cooperative, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit, funds Ethereum Classic's client development teams and has managed the hard fork coordination process throughout that history. Stakeholder outreach, client release sequencing, and cross-client testing are all established practice. Olympia is a significant upgrade carried forward by a team with a clean delivery record across a decade of ETC network upgrades.
The ETC Cooperative is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit that has funded Ethereum Classic's core client development for years, contributing millions of dollars to the network's client teams and infrastructure through every upgrade cycle. Every hard fork, every client release, and every cross-client coordination effort has been backed by their balance sheet. Olympia is what they were building toward: a protocol-native funding model that does not depend on any single organization's continued generosity. The model changes, not the commitment. The ETC Cooperative continues as an active steward, and any developer, mining operation, hardware manufacturer, investment product issuer, or individual worldwide can now contribute directly on-chain without fielding a team or managing a non-profit to do it. The regulatory clarity now taking shape globally — ETC positioned as a digital commodity candidate under the CLARITY Act, a decentralized asset under MiCA (in force December 2024), listed on Japan's FSA Green List, and qualifying infrastructure for stablecoin issuance under the GENIUS Act, with parallel frameworks advancing across the UK, UAE, Hong Kong, and major Asia-Pacific jurisdictions — means the full spectrum of participants can engage with confidence.
Grayscale launched the Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust ( ETCG) in 2018, years before Bitcoin ETFs existed as a product category, and simultaneously became a major institutional donor to the ETC Cooperative — pioneering what is now recognized industry practice: investment product issuers directly funding the protocol development underlying their products. The ETCG trust is itself a vehicle through which a globally distributed pool of retail and institutional investors participate in ETC's network — Grayscale is the product issuer, but the capital base is decentralized. The funding that has reached ETC's core development through the Cooperative did not originate from a single centralized entity. What Grayscale was doing in 2018, the rest of the industry has only recently caught up to. With Olympia, Grayscale leads again — from pioneering the institutional off-chain funding model to supporting the first Proof-of-Work network to take that model fully on-chain. This is only possible on Ethereum Classic: Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin have no native smart contract functionality and depend entirely on off-chain organizations and institutional goodwill to fund development. Grayscale, as one of the largest stakeholders in the ETC network, has proven consistently aligned to ETC's core principles — contributing material funding to codify those principles into ETC's development infrastructure. With Olympia, those efforts move on-chain. Contributions are open to all. Access is open to all. ETC's self-sovereignty is no longer dependent on any single institution's continued generosity.
The Olympia Treasury is funded primarily by basefee revenue — the portion of every transaction fee redirected to the treasury automatically under the Olympia protocol rules. Block rewards and tips go entirely to miners unchanged. Voluntary on-chain donations and mining operations that choose to direct a portion of block rewards to the treasury address add to that base. Futarchy prediction market activity generates additional transaction volume that compounds the basefee flywheel. Any stakeholder — exchanges, custodians, miners, investment product issuers, or institutions holding ETC on behalf of fund shareholders — can contribute directly on-chain with no overhead. Stakeholders who prefer a traditional giving model can contribute through the ETC Cooperative, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit that accepts tax-deductible donations.
Three systems operate in parallel. Binding protocol decisions are made by Olympia DAO members holding non-transferable membership NFTs — any EVM developer worldwide can submit proposals and bid for development funds, infrastructure contracts, or service agreements with no employment relationship or preferred vendor status required. Public participation is open to everyone through futarchy prediction markets, where anyone can stake on proposal outcomes without membership and earn financial rewards for accurate predictions. The network participant layer provides a third governance signal: miners, exchanges, wallets, and infrastructure providers govern through the client software they run. The three tiers are mutually dependent — developers build and maintain the protocol, users interact and generate value, and network participants run the software that secures and routes it.
Governance operates on three complementary layers. The Olympia DAO uses non-transferable membership NFTs for binding protocol decisions scoped to core client software, critical infrastructure, network security, treasury allocation, and emergency responses — governed by the OpenZeppelin Governor 5.x contract suite, which defines the full voting, quorum, timelock, and proposal lifecycle parameters. Open futarchy prediction markets allow anyone to stake on proposal outcomes without membership, earn financial rewards for accurate predictions, and generate basefee revenue that flows back to the protocol treasury. The network participant layer provides a third governance signal: miners, exchanges, wallets, and infrastructure providers run the software that makes the network real. Protocol changes achieve distributed consensus when the broader network adopts them — an expression of interdependence across all three tiers.
Olympia closes years of EVM divergence in a single upgrade. ECIP-1121 delivers the remaining execution-layer improvements from Dencun, Pectra, and Fusaka that are independent of Proof-of-Stake and blob data availability. ECIP-1121 also resolves the SELFDESTRUCT restriction deferred by Spiral — EIP-6049 (included in Spiral) was a deprecation notice only; EIP-6780 delivers the actual enforcement, restricting SELFDESTRUCT to the deployment transaction. After Olympia, Solidity 0.8.x, Foundry, Hardhat, wagmi, viem, and ethers.js all work on ETC without modification, patching, or ETC-specific forks. One codebase deploys to every EVM chain. Before Olympia, ETC could not claim full compatibility with current Ethereum tooling. After Olympia, it can.
Olympia is targeted for mainnet activation before 2027. Olympia activates on Mordor testnet first. The mainnet activation block is announced after a successful Mordor run and a coordinated stakeholder readiness check with exchanges, mining pools, node operators, and infrastructure providers. The process follows the same sequence used for every previous ETC hard fork. All client implementations publish Olympia-compatible releases well before activation.
Multiple safeguards protect treasury funds. A configurable timelock delay on all approved proposals gives the community time to review before execution. On-chain sanctions screening prevents sanctioned addresses from participating or receiving funds. Non-transferable voting tokens prevent vote buying. All governance mechanics are implemented through OpenZeppelin's Governor 5.x framework — an audited contract suite with a multi-year deployment record across the EVM ecosystem. All treasury transactions are publicly recorded and independently verifiable on-chain. The Wyoming DAO LLC provides an additional layer of legal accountability for real-world execution.
ETC's three-layer governance architecture strengthens its regulatory profile across all major frameworks. In the EU, ETC qualifies as a decentralized asset under MiCA, in force since December 2024, exempt from per-asset issuer requirements. In Japan, ETC is recognized on the FSA Green List. In the US, ETC is positioned as a digital commodity candidate under the CLARITY Act, pending Senate passage. The Olympia DAO, futarchy markets, and the network participant layer together ensure no single party controls the protocol — the core decentralization criterion each framework applies. View ETC's full regulatory profile →