The ETC Cooperative transition¶
The ETC Cooperative is winding down, and the services it maintained are moving to the ethereumclassic GitHub organization. The Cooperative has been in maintenance mode since the end of 2024. Its 2024 retrospective describes “cooperative-maintained services, including RPC endpoints”, and states that the Cooperative will stay in maintenance mode until its funding runs out: “At that time, it will be up to other stakeholders to take on any required maintenance of the ETC client, unless a new plan materializes.” The ETC Cooperative board has communicated that the Cooperative is scheduled to dissolve by the end of 2026.
Long-time Ethereum Classic core developers are standing up replacements in the ethereumclassic organization, so that operators have somewhere to move before the Cooperative closes. One service has already stopped.
What to do now
- Get Core-Geth releases from
ethereumclassic/core-geth. The ETC Cooperative board has communicated its intent to archiveetclabscore/core-geth. - For a public endpoint today, use the lists on ChainList, for Ethereum Classic, chain 61 and Mordor, chain 63.
https://etc.rivet.linkno longer resolves. This project’s own endpoints are being stood up to replace it: see Public JSON-RPC. - Use security@ethereumclassic.com as your security contact. A person answers it: one of the core developers who maintain Core-Geth.
- Check the organization before you follow a notice. Before you move a node, a pool or an application to a new source of software or data, confirm which organization publishes it. The services on this page continue in the
ethereumclassicorganization.
Where each service continues¶
| Service | Before | Continues at | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core-Geth client | etclabscore/core-geth, owned by the ETC Cooperative | ethereumclassic/core-geth | v1.13.0 released on 14 September 2026 |
| Peer discovery DNS trees | The trees published from etclabscore/discv4-dns-lists | The trees under ethereumclassic.net, ethclassic.net and ethereumclassic.network, published from ethereumclassic/discv4-dns-lists | Published since 10 September 2026 and built into v1.13.0. The previous trees still resolve, and the board has communicated that they are to be archived as the Cooperative dissolves |
| Bootnodes | The bootnodes built into v1.12.x | Three Classic and two Mordor bootnodes run by the Core-Geth maintainers, built into v1.13.0 | Running |
| Public JSON-RPC endpoints | etc.rivet.link, which ethereumclassic.org describes as provided by Rivet under contract with the ETC Cooperative, and rpc.mordor.etccooperative.org for Mordor, on the Cooperative’s own domain | The lists on ChainList today; rpc.ethereumclassic.net and rpc-mordor.ethereumclassic.net as they are stood up, from ethereumclassic/public-rpc and ethereumclassic/nodes | etc.rivet.link went offline in late August 2026. See Public JSON-RPC |
| Security contact for stakeholders | The ETC Cooperative | security@ethereumclassic.com | Active |
Bootnodes and peer discovery explains how the discovery trees are built from a crawl of the network, and how to point a node at any other list.
Public JSON-RPC¶
Use ChainList today. It lists the public endpoints Ethereum Classic operators publish, for Ethereum Classic, chain 61 and Mordor, chain 63, with the chain parameters each one needs. etc.rivet.link went offline in late August 2026 and no longer resolves, so any configuration still naming it needs changing now. rpc.mordor.etccooperative.org still answers, from the dissolving ETC Cooperative’s own domain.
This project is standing up replacements, rpc.ethereumclassic.net for Ethereum Classic and rpc-mordor.ethereumclassic.net for Mordor, built from ethereumclassic/public-rpc and ethereumclassic/nodes. Until they answer, ChainList is the recommendation. This page says so when that changes.
They are run from the organization’s repositories on purpose. An endpoint a wallet, an explorer or a payment processor depends on should not disappear because one company’s contract ended, which is what happened to etc.rivet.link. Keeping the configuration and the admission list in public repositories in the ethereumclassic organization means more than one maintainer can rebuild or move the service, and anyone can read how it is run. The ethereumclassic.net domain is designated for the network’s public goods as the ETC Cooperative dissolves, and v1.13.0 already publishes its discovery trees under it.
A public endpoint is someone else’s node. It sees every request you send it, and it can rate limit you, fall behind or stop. Anything you depend on should run against a node you control. Public RPC endpoint covers serving JSON-RPC from your own node.
Timeline¶
| When | What |
|---|---|
| 30 July 2024 | The Cooperative’s published roadmap lists moving Core-Geth to the community GitHub repository |
| End of 2024 | The ETC Cooperative enters maintenance mode |
| 21 December 2024 | ethereumclassic/core-geth is created from etclabscore/core-geth at 7ef3ecd7a |
| 17 March 2026 | The website’s footer link to this repository is reverted to the previous organization’s GitHub page (#1676) |
| 18 March 2026 | v1.12.21 is published from the previous repository |
| 20 March 2026 | A pull request to point the website’s client entry at this repository and remove the previous organization’s footer link is opened (#1678); it has not been merged |
| 2 August 2026 | A draft migration announcement for the website is added to that pull request; it has not been published |
| 28 August 2026 | ethereumclassic/discv4-dns-lists is created |
| Late August 2026 | etc.rivet.link goes offline |
| 31 August 2026 | ethereumclassic/public-rpc and ethereumclassic/nodes are created |
| 10 September 2026 | The first crawl of the network is published from ethereumclassic/discv4-dns-lists |
| 14 September 2026 | v1.13.0 is released with the organization’s bootnodes and discovery trees |
| End of 2026 | The ETC Cooperative is scheduled to dissolve, as communicated by its board |
Why the ethereumclassic organization¶
The ethereumclassic organization is where Ethereum Classic keeps its community resources: the ECIPs, the website and, since December 2024, Core-Geth. The Cooperative’s 2024 retrospective reproduces a conference slide by its Senior Editor, Donald McIntyre, proposing “Move Core Geth to the Ethereum Classic community repository” (page 24 of the PDF), and the Cooperative’s published roadmap says the same: Ethereum Classic Pathways, 30 July 2024, lists “Move Core Geth to the Ethereum Classic community GitHub repository: This would restore sovereignty of the community on the node client software.” Moving the services there keeps their code, configuration and history in public repositories under the community’s name, with more than one maintainer, after the Cooperative closes.
The website’s client entry still points at the previous project. ethereumclassic.org/development/clients links its documentation site, installation guide, releases and support channel, so use the release link on this page rather than the one on the website. #1678, opened on 20 March 2026 by a member of the Cooperative’s board, would point that entry here and remove the previous organization’s footer link. It has not been merged.
The project history traces Core-Geth’s code and its maintainers, and v1.13.0: the record behind the release sets out the record for this release.