Ethereum Classic Community Divided Over Charles Hoskinson’s Proposed Treasury Protocol

Charles Hoskinson presented his idea for a decentralized treasury protocol to the Ethereum Classic (ETC) community during a Discord call on August 13. Hoskinson, who is the founder of Cardano (ADA) and one of the co-founders of Ethereum, strongly believes that setting up an independent source of funding for development and innovation can ensure the prosperity of ETC.

Hoskinson’s proposal to change ETC’s block reward allocation would mean that instead of rewards going entirely to the network’s miners, blocks would allocate a portion of every reward to a newly-created decentralized treasury. This treasury would then be used to finance future development of the ecosystem. IOHK, a company which Hoskinson runs, has also apparently developed a technology that would prevent future 51% attacks. 

He contended that the best defense against such attacks is innovation, which he believes will attract more DApps and users. This would lead to the appreciation of ETC, which would in turn attract more miners, making such attacks improbable in the future. Not everyone was enthused by Hoskinson’s proposal, however. Some felt that a reduction in rewards would lead to a miner exodus, while others did not like the idea that initial projects might all be led by IOHK.

When explaining the supposedly unfair advantage that ICO projects have over ETC, Hoskinson took a small swipe at Ethereum and Chainlink:

“ETC would be at a very different place, Ethereum had an unfair advantage. All those people who wanted to do cool stuff like the chainlinks and so forth, they did their ICOs. That's how they funded everything. Our ecosystem was much more principled. We didn't succumb to the ICO mania.”

It sounded for a moment as if Hoskinson was channeling Adam Back, who recently lambasted ICO projects, including Cardano. But things became truly heated when James Wo’s question was read by the moderator.

James Wo’s question. 

Wo is the founder and CEO of Digital Finance Group — a crypto investment firm with $550 million in assets under management. His group has a vested interest in one of the biggest contributors to the ETC ecosystem, ETC Labs. From the tone of his question, Wo appeared to perceive Hoskinson’s proposal as a hostile takeover attempt.

Hoskinson jumped in before letting the moderator finish reading, directing his answer directly to Wo:

“Because I was here in the very beginning, James, and I put millions of dollars of my own money in. I understand that you put money in and that's why I say we should split it up. But I was here in the beginning. I put my brand and reputation on the line.”

When the moderator finished reading Wo’s question, Hoskinson continued:

“I was here in the beginning, in the beginning of Ethereum, in the beginning of Ethereum Classic; again, I put my own time and money in. I didn't ask for anything until I had a fully working client built with 100% new code.”

Terry Culver, the CEO of ETC Labs, jumped in to interrupt Hoskinson, but was silenced by the moderator.

The call lasted a total of 90 minutes, though some stayed on after the main participants left. Most seemed skeptical about miners accepting a decrease to the block reward.