In a tweet only hours old, one of the leading teams furthering the development of Ethereum Classic (ETC), threw in the towel citing funding difficulties that made it hard for them to continue operations. The tweet included a screenshot of the announcement from ETCDEV’s founder and CTO, Igor Artamonov, that stated the following:
As is publicly known we have struggled with funding our operation in the last few weeks. This was partially due to the market crash, combined with a cash crunch in the company.
We appealed to investors in the ecosystem as well as external to it. We also did the community fund, but in none of these cases were we successful in securing short-term financing.
The full tweet can be found below.
Unfortunately ETCDEV cannot continue to work in the current situation and has to announce shutdown of our current activities pic.twitter.com/N6xWnpBNJJ
— Emerald (@getemerald) December 3, 2018
Who is ETCDEV?
According to the team’s website, the ETC Development team is responsible for the following functions in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem.
ETCDEV is a leading Ethereum Classic development company with a strong focus on decentralized computing providing long term support for the ETC blockchain.
The ETCDEV team maintains Classic Geth, the main client for the ETC blockchain. We also contributed original projects, such as Emerald to help others develop on the ETC blockchain, Emerald Wallet for end users, and SputnikVM as a standalone, modular, embeddable and IoT ready EVM.
A Polite Plea for Funding From the Community
On the 2nd of December, the team at ETCDEV had asked the ETC community if they would be willing to help fund operations at the development company. 59% of a total of 692 community members responded that they would NOT contribute to fund ETCDEV. A screenshot of the current results of the poll can be found below.
Other ETC Development Teams
ETCDEV is one of many Ethereum Classic development teams. There is also, IOHK (Grothendieck), Ethereum Commonwealth, ETC Labs and ETC Cooperative.
- IOHK (Grothendieck) -a motivated group of math and science-driven engineers and developers. At the forefront of team’s development is Mantis which easily connects to the IOHK Daedalus Wallet UI, allowing users to easily manage their ETC
- ETC Labs– provides funding, industry connections, and office space to burgeoning ETC projects; with office space in San Francisco and Singapore
- ETC Cooperative – created to financially support the growth and development of Ethereum Classic by funding three key aspects of the ETC ecosystem: development, marketing, and community
- Ethereum Commowealth – works on multiple blockchain projects including ETC and currently maintains Classic Ether Wallet
More on the teams can be found on the Ethereum Classic website.
Does This Mark the End of The Road for Ethereum Classic?
Further checking coinmarketcap.com, ETC has fallen 13.3% in the last 24 hours. The drop in value might be a mix of the current bear market and the reaction to the news of the development team throwing in the towel. Early Monday found ETC trading at around $5.08. The digital asset is now valued at $4.52 as news continues to reach the crypto-verse about the fate of ETCDEV.
ETC had shown some much needed momentum when it was listed on Coinbase this August. However, any market gains have been eroded by the bear market. The announcement by ETCDEV might also have a lingering effect on ETC as the other development teams strive to continue working on the project.
What are your thoughts on the Ethereum Classic Development Team ceasing operations due to funding? Please let us know in the comment section below.
Disclaimer: This article is not meant to give financial advice. Any additional opinion herein is purely the author’s and does not represent the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its other writers. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.
