DAOUSDT
DAO Maker / Tether USD
crypto Composite

\*\*Disclosure:\*\* I'm Kevin, ETC Community Manager at Classix. Istora, Classix's co-founder, published this essay on classix.dev yesterday. I'm summarizing it here so it can be discussed where the community actually talks. Full essay: https://classix.dev/the-praxeology-of-ethereum-classic
\*\*The idea\*\*
Think of a chain in three layers. Layer 1 is the protocol. Layer 0 is the social layer: developers, miners, exchanges and users. Layer -1 is the set of principles beneath the people, the part that doesn't move when the social layer does. The essay argues that ETC's principles are that bedrock, and that they follow step by step from one fact.
\*\*The argument\*\*
1. Blockchains exist. People pay fees to use them, even though a chain is a slower, more expensive database than a conventional one.
2. The only reason to pay extra is that nobody can stop it. If you don't need that, a regular database is cheaper.
3. It has to be unstoppable by anyone. If one organization can stop the chain, it's that organization's database, whether or not it ever uses the power.
4. So decentralization has to run through the whole stack: clients, pools, mining hardware, exchanges, RPC endpoints, explorers and funding sources. The social layer's job is to keep reducing single points of failure.
5. Neutrality: the protocol shouldn't privilege any party, because a privileged party can be pressured. Mining shows what this looks like. The protocol doesn't know who a miner is, and the reward goes to whoever produced the block.
6. Ossification: every hard fork is a window for capture, so forks should only happen for technical reasons.
7. The Crypto-Decentralist Manifesto and the Declaration of Independence, both written within weeks of the DAO fork in 2016, record these principles as the reason ETC exists.
The essay's claim is that each step follows from the one before. Deny a step and you're left with either a worse database or a proposal that defeats its own purpose.
\*\*What this means for Classix\*\*
An organization is the kind of bottleneck the steps above warn about, so our test for anything we take on is whether it leaves ETC depending on us. We're publishing what we run so anyone else can run it, we're funded voluntarily rather than by any cut of the protocol, and we're explicitly not official. We don't speak for the chain.
\*\*Question for the sub:\*\* Which step would you push back on? The argument only works if every step holds, so I'd rather hear where people think it breaks.

\*\*Disclosure:\*\* I'm Kevin, ETC Community Manager at Classix. Istora, Classix's co-founder, published this essay on classix.dev yesterday. I'm summarizing it here so it can be discussed where the community actually talks. Full essay: https://classix.dev/the-praxeology-of-ethereum-classic
\*\*The idea\*\*
Think of a chain in three layers. Layer 1 is the protocol. Layer 0 is the social layer: developers, miners, exchanges and users. Layer -1 is the set of principles beneath the people, the part that doesn't move when the social layer does. The essay argues that ETC's principles are that bedrock, and that they follow step by step from one fact.
\*\*The argument\*\*
1. Blockchains exist. People pay fees to use them, even though a chain is a slower, more expensive database than a conventional one.
2. The only reason to pay extra is that nobody can stop it. If you don't need that, a regular database is cheaper.
3. It has to be unstoppable by anyone. If one organization can stop the chain, it's that organization's database, whether or not it ever uses the power.
4. So decentralization has to run through the whole stack: clients, pools, mining hardware, exchanges, RPC endpoints, explorers and funding sources. The social layer's job is to keep reducing single points of failure.
5. Neutrality: the protocol shouldn't privilege any party, because a privileged party can be pressured. Mining shows what this looks like. The protocol doesn't know who a miner is, and the reward goes to whoever produced the block.
6. Ossification: every hard fork is a window for capture, so forks should only happen for technical reasons.
7. The Crypto-Decentralist Manifesto and the Declaration of Independence, both written within weeks of the DAO fork in 2016, record these principles as the reason ETC exists.
The essay's claim is that each step follows from the one before. Deny a step and you're left with either a worse database or a proposal that defeats its own purpose.
\*\*What this means for Classix\*\*
An organization is the kind of bottleneck the steps above warn about, so our test for anything we take on is whether it leaves ETC depending on us. We're publishing what we run so anyone else can run it, we're funded voluntarily rather than by any cut of the protocol, and we're explicitly not official. We don't speak for the chain.
\*\*Question for the sub:\*\* Which step would you push back on? The argument only works if every step holds, so I'd rather hear where people think it breaks.

Hello ETCLand! I'm Kevin (some of you know me as Classic Kevin). I was the community manager for ETC at IOHK and then the ETC Cooperative, and I'm now working with Classix. Classix has published two posts on its blog but has never posted here, so this is a summary of both, with links if you want the full versions.
**Who Classix is**
Classix is a small ETC infrastructure and development team founded by two long-time contributors:
* **Istora Mandiri** has contributed to ETC since before the DAO fork. He built the first [ethereumclassic.org](http://ethereumclassic.org), has hosted 50+ Community Calls, and co-maintains the ECIP process.
* **Diego López León** is currently the only core maintainer of the ETC clients. He joined the Cooperative in 2021 as its first full-time core developer and has shipped across Core-Geth, Besu and Nethermind.
Full intro: [Hello, Classix](https://classix.dev/hello-classix)
**Why now**
The Cooperative is shutting down, and some of the services it ran went offline without notice. The most visible was the public RPC at etc.rivet.link. **If anything you run still points there, it has silently stopped working.**
**What's running today**
* **Public RPC:** [rpc.classix.dev](https://rpc.classix.dev). It's geo-routed through gateways in the Americas, Europe and Asia. It's still good practice to set up failover across more than one endpoint ([chainlist](https://chainlist.org/chain/61) lists others).
* **Project Triforce:** ten nodes across three regions, running four clients (Geth Classic, Nethermind and Besu three times each, plus a Core-Geth node).
* **Live dashboard:** [triforce.classix.dev](https://triforce.classix.dev) shows per-client sync, peers, netstats and reorgs, so you can check that the network is healthy.
* **Multisig mirror:** [multisig.classix.dev](https://multisig.classix.dev), with the [source](https://github.com/classix-dev/nix-catacomb) to run your own. It's live but not yet battle-tested.
* **Block explorer:** [explorer.classix.dev](https://explorer.classix.dev) is in progress, and Blockscout remains supported.
* **Monthly activity reports:** [classix.dev/activity](https://classix.dev/activity) lists what was done each month, going back to founding.
**Where it's heading**
The goal is that no one depends on any single organisation to keep ETC running, including Classix. We're preparing to publish every service as an open-source NixOS config that any operator can clone. Then, if there's ever another handover, it's a git clone rather than a crisis. Those configs aren't public yet. They're on the roadmap, and we'll post here when they are.
The roadmap also covers:
* getc production readiness
* full Besu integration
* ETC in Nethermind's CI
* the Neo Classic refresh of [ethereumclassic.org](http://ethereumclassic.org)
* Bastion (ECIP-1130), a proposal that bundles upstream EIPs and is going through the normal ECIP process
Everything is marked done, in progress or not started, so you can hold us to it: [The 2026 Classix Roadmap](https://classix.dev/roadmap)
**How to get involved**
* Point a wallet or service at the RPC and tell us if something breaks.
* Watch the dashboard, and ask about anything that looks odd.
* If you already contribute to ETC (code, nodes, moderation, translation, media, memes), Classix wants to hear from you. The blog has a contact form, or you can reply here.
* The [Community Calls](https://cc.ethereumclassic.org) are still the best place to have a real conversation about where ETC goes next.
I'll be in the comments for the next day or so. Questions, criticism and "what about X" are all welcome.

Kevin and Istora joined ETC Grants DAO for their AMA to talk about the next chapter of the ETC ecosystem!