Ethereum Classic, the original chain of the Ethereum project, could be in trouble after the founder and CTO of a major development team, ETCDEV, announced on Twitter that his project could not continue and that it was shutting down. Citing financial issues as the chief factor, Igor Artamonov stated that the team had tried to find additional streams of income but that these had failed, leaving him with no choice.
Unfortunately ETCDEV cannot continue to work in the current situation and has to announce shutdown of our current activities pic.twitter.com/N6xWnpBNJJ
— ETCDEV (@etcdev) December 3, 2018
Lack of Funding
Ethereum Classic (ETC), which calls itself “a cryptocurrency that takes digital assets further”, was the result of the Ethereum chain hard fork after the DAO hack in 2016. The ETC coin was added to Coinbase in August, but has suffered a 91% price drop from its highs of $40 in January, and it seems that the market conditions have taken their toll and affected the money available to the ETCDEV project.
A Twitter poll conducted earlier this week asked the Ethereum Classic community if they were willing to donate to keep the project going, but the proposal was met with a 60% negative response, with the closure announcement coming just twenty-four hours later.
Lackluster Projects
Ethereum Classic has struggled for adoption and use cases since the split, with offshoot Ethereum becoming the preeminent smart contract platform of the past two years. The Ethereum Classic blockchain does have a number of projects associated with it, including some prototypes and future releases, but they are not in the same league as other platforms, particularly sister chain Ethereum.
Despite the closure of the ETCDEV team, hope is not lost as there are four other development teams working on projects for the Ethereum Classic blockchain. Plus, the roadmap is still full of promise. A turnaround in market conditions could see a turnaround in the fortunes of Ethereum Classic too, although whether the existing development teams survive that long is another matter.
