Grayscale to Fund Ethereum Classic Developers for 2 More Years

Grayscale Investments has committed to financially supporting development of the ethereum classic (ETC) cryptocurrency for another two years.

Announced Wednesday, the asset manager will continue to donate one-third of the management fees from its Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust to the ETC Cooperative each quarter through 2021. 

“It is a big vote of confidence which we deeply appreciate. This funding allows us to continue our support of the ETC protocol and ecosystem,” ETC Cooperative executive director Bob Summerwill said by private message. “We will provide grants for key projects, as we have through 2018 and 2019.”

Since 2017, Grayscale has donated a total of $1.1 million, including $338,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, to the cooperative, which funds development of the protocol behind the 15th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Grayscale manages some $80 million of assets in its ethereum classic vehicle, with nearly 10 million shares backed by about 0.92 ETC each. The trust controls about 14 percent of the total supply of ETC, based on fund disclosures and data from ETC Block Explorer. The manager charges a fee of three percent of assets under management.

The company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk.

Ethereum classic was created in 2016 as a splinter currency from ethereum (ETH) after the team leading development for the latter made a controversial decision to roll back a hacker’s transactions.

More recently, however, ETC has been building bridges with its sister chain. Recent hard forks, or system-wide upgrades, in September 2019 and January 2020 added ethereum-based updates to ethereum classic for improved interoperability. 

The ethereum classic team expects to achieve “protocol parity with ETH” from a pending hard fork known as Aztlán, Summerwill said.