Ethereum Classic (ETC) Price Prediction 2026-2030: Can ETC Reach $100 Again?

Last Updated: November 3, 2026

Ethereum Classic (ETC) trades near $6.99 as of November 3, 2026, with a market cap of about $1.11 billion (#57 on CoinMarketCap). It is down about 39% since the end of 2025 and about 96% below its all-time high of $176.16 from May 2021.

Central estimates from the two models we track put ETC between about $6.30 (CoinLore) and $6.81 (CoinCodex) at the end of 2026, and between about $4.13 (CoinCodex) and $13.00 (CoinLore) in 2030. On July 22, ETC’s block reward fell 20% to 1.6384 ETC under its fixed emission schedule.

Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum blockchain, kept running by miners who rejected the July 2016 fork that reversed The DAO hack. It still uses proof of work and caps its supply at no more than 210.7 million ETC.

In 2026, the price peaked on January 6, fell about 55% to its low for the year on August 18, rose about 72% to an intraday high on September 24 and has since fallen about 33%.

This update covers the current ETC price, the main 2026 developments, the latest forecasts for 2026 to 2030 and 2040, and what it would take for ETC to reach $100 or its record.

Key Takeaways

• ETC trades about 96% below its all-time high of $176.16, set on May 6, 2021, and about 16 times its all-time low of $0.45 from July 2016
• The coin is down about 39% since the end of 2025: it peaked at $13.51 on January 6, hit its 2026 low of $6.02 on August 18 and has lost about 21% over the past 30 days
• The fifth 20% block reward cut under ETC’s “5M20” schedule took effect on July 22, starting with block 25,000,001, lowering new issuance to about 10,450 ETC a day
• Olympia, a set of draft proposals that would add an EIP-1559 fee market and send base fees to an on-chain treasury, has no activation date, and the mining pools F2Pool, 2Miners and Antpool have signed a petition against it
• About 75% of the 210.7 million ETC ceiling has been mined, and Grayscale’s Ethereum Classic Trust held about 10.85 million ETC, about 6.9% of the circulating supply, at the end of June
• Central estimates from the two models we track put ETC between about $6.30 and $6.81 at the end of 2026, both below today’s price, and between about $4.13 and $13.00 in 2030

Ethereum Classic (ETC) Key Data (November 2026)

Sources: CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko and the Blockscout explorer. CoinGecko shows the same circulating supply but ranks ETC #70 and lists an all-time high of $167.09 and an all-time low of $0.615. This article measures the year-to-date change from the December 31, 2025 close.

The fully diluted value multiplies the price by the 210.7 million ceiling set by ECIP-1017, an upper limit; the same proposal estimates the final supply at no less than 198.5 million. CoinGecko instead uses the 158.9 million ETC mined so far, so its fully diluted value equals the market cap.

What Is Ethereum Classic (ETC)?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the original Ethereum blockchain, which launched in July 2015. In June 2016, an attacker used a bug to drain ether from The DAO, a smart contract project. On July 20, 2016, the Ethereum Foundation created an altered version of the chain at block 1,920,000 to reverse the theft, and that forked chain became today’s Ethereum (ETH).

Miners who rejected the change kept the original chain running as Ethereum Classic, whose community sums up its principle as “Code is law.” Like Ethereum, it runs smart contracts and decentralized applications.

The main differences today are consensus and supply. Ethereum moved to proof of stake on September 15, 2022, while ETC still uses proof-of-work mining with an algorithm that its official site calls “almost identical to ETHash,” so it can be mined with the same hardware that once mined Ethereum.

ETC’s monetary policy, ECIP-1017, known as “5M20,” cuts the block reward by 20% every 5 million blocks, roughly every two years, and sets a ceiling of 210.7 million ETC. ETC’s market cap is about 0.4% of Ethereum’s. More background is available on the official Ethereum Classic website, and our Ethereum price prediction covers ETH.

Ethereum Classic News: What Has Happened in 2026

Fifth emission cut. On July 22, the block reward fell from 2.048 ETC to 1.6384 ETC starting with block 25,000,001, the first block of the sixth era under ECIP-1017. It was the fifth 20% reduction under 5M20.

At the recent pace of about 13.5 seconds per block, new issuance is about 10,450 ETC a day, or about 2.4% of the circulating supply a year. The next cut, to 1.31072 ETC, is due from block 30,000,001, around September 2028 at that pace. ETC closed July 22 at about $6.94, little changed on the day.

Olympia stays a draft. Olympia is a set of Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposals (ECIPs) that would activate an EIP-1559 fee market and, instead of burning the base fee as Ethereum does, send it to an on-chain treasury governed by a DAO. A July 2025 post on the official blog by one of the proposals’ authors set a target of mainnet activation “by end of 2026, subject to ecosystem consensus and readiness.”

As of our late October check, every Olympia ECIP was still in Draft status, and ECIP-1121, the execution-layer part of what it calls the “Olympia Hardfork,” listed its activation blocks as “TBD.” A March 30 post on the official blog compared Olympia with ECIP-1120, which would pay base fees to miners, and said: “Neither proposal is final.”

Miners push back. A petition at nolympia.dev, created in March and updated on July 14, states: “We oppose the Olympia ECIPs (111x), which introduce a protocol-layer treasury system to Ethereum Classic.” Its 35 signers, including the mining pools F2Pool, 2Miners and Antpool and the ETC Grants DAO, say they “will not mine or contribute to any version that implements it.”

A separate draft created in June, ECIP-1130 “Bastion,” would bring a subset of changes from Ethereum’s Cancun, Prague and Osaka upgrades; its activation blocks are also “TBD.” The last upgrade to activate was Spiral, at block 19,250,000 in February 2024.

Client security. In March, the Core-Geth client released what it called “an emergency patch addressing an active attack against Ethereum Classic bootnodes,” followed by fixes for several published vulnerabilities; the current release, v1.12.23, came out in August.

In mid-September, according to crypto.news, a “v1.13.0” release from a separate GitHub repository, a fork of Core-Geth created in December 2024, was promoted as a security update. An incident report by Classix, cited by the outlet, called it a “rogue version” because “the existing Core Geth maintainers had not reviewed it.”

Four 2Miners nodes were running it at 12:09 UTC on September 15 and had returned to v1.12.23 by 23:35 UTC, and the report said “no blocks were lost” and no funds were affected. Fukuii, a new client written in Scala, began alpha testing in December 2025.

Trust and ETF products. Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust, quoted over the counter as ETCG, held about 10.85 million ETC at the end of June, about 6.9% of the circulating supply at the time. Its latest quarterly report says the trust “currently has no intention of seeking regulatory approval to operate an ongoing redemption program.” We found no registration statement for a spot ETC exchange-traded fund on SEC EDGAR.

ETC Price History

CoinMarketCap began tracking ETC on July 24, 2016, days after the split, and recorded its all-time low of $0.45 the next day. ETC closed 2017 near $28, lost 82% in 2018 and ended 2019 and 2020 below $6.

In 2020, ETC suffered three 51% attacks in a month. The project’s history page dates them to July 31, August 6 and August 29, and The Block reported that they reorganized about 3,700, 4,000 and more than 7,000 blocks.

In May 2021, ETC rose from about $36 at the end of April to its all-time high of $176.16 on May 6, when its market cap closed at a record of about $15.6 billion.

It last closed above $100 on May 14, 2021. After Ethereum’s move to proof of stake in September 2022, ETC’s hashrate jumped from about 64 TH/s to 183 TH/s in a day, according to The Block, which linked the rise to Ethereum’s switch.

In 2026, ETC closed at its yearly high of $13.36 on January 6, after touching $13.51 intraday, then lost about 15% in January. It fell 14% on February 5, when Bitcoin also fell about 14%. June was its worst month, with a loss of about 16%, and ETC hit its 2026 low of $6.02 on August 18.

It rose about 20% on August 21 and gained about 22% in September, its best month, reaching $10.38 intraday on September 24 on the year’s highest trading volume. ETC has lost about 21% over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko.

ETC Price Prediction 2026

With about two months left in the year, the central estimates of both models we track put ETC below today’s price at the end of 2026. We checked both forecast pages on November 3, 2026.

CoinCodex expects a December average of about $6.81, about 3% below today’s price; its headline target of $6.80 sits inside its December range. CoinLore’s base case of $6.30 would be a fall of about 10%, while its bull case of $25.71 would be about 3.7 times today’s price. Both forecasts were updated on November 3 and show a price close to CoinMarketCap’s.

We do not use figures from three other sites:

• CoinDataFlow, whose ETC forecasts were almost the same multiples of the current price as its forecasts for Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash
• Changelly, whose English ETC page could not be opened and whose French version showed unfilled template fields
• BeInCrypto, whose ETC page showed placeholder values such as a $0.00 price

ETC trades about 16% below its 50-day moving average of $8.28 and about 10% below its 200-day average of $7.80, with a 14-day RSI of about 31, according to CoinCodex.

Range of central 2026 estimates: about $6.30 to $6.81.

Blockchainreporter Scenario Range for the End of 2026

Unlike the model forecasts above, this range is Blockchainreporter’s own. It shows where ETC could close on December 31, 2026 if it keeps the volatility of the past 90 days, without assuming a trend in either direction. It is a scenario range, not a price target or investment advice.

How we calculated it: ETC traded at about $7.27 on CoinGecko on November 5, 2026, and its daily moves over the previous 90 days imply annualized volatility of about 73%. Projecting that volatility over the 56 days to the December 31 close, with no trend, half of the modeled outcomes fall inside the base range, one in ten ends above the bull figure and one in ten ends below the bear figure. Crypto prices have fatter tails than this model assumes, so moves beyond the bear and bull figures are more likely than it suggests. Blockchainreporter’s Crypto Price Prediction Tracker records this range and will score it against CoinMarketCap’s December 31 close in January 2027.

ETC Price Prediction 2027

The central 2027 estimates range from about $5.66 at CoinCodex to $6.81 at CoinLore, both below today’s price. CoinCodex’s monthly path holds near $6 to $7 through July 2027, then falls to about $4.30 by October. CoinLore’s bull case of $18.70 would be about 2.7 times today’s price. Most of these models are built mainly on past prices.

ETC Price Prediction 2028 and 2029

For 2028 and 2029, central estimates range from about $3.66 to $9.22, and the two models move in opposite directions. CoinCodex’s path stays between about $4.20 and $4.80 through 2028, then falls to about $3.40 by December 2029.

CoinLore’s base case rises above today’s price from 2028, while its bull case for 2029 ($70.20) is higher than its bull cases for 2030 ($69.13) and 2031 ($60.23).

ETC Price Prediction 2030

The two central estimates for 2030 point in opposite directions. CoinCodex’s average of about $4.13 would be a fall of about 41%, and its headline target of $3.83 is close to its December 2030 range. CoinLore’s base case of $13.00 would be a gain of about 86%, and even its bear case, $8.71, is above today’s price.

CoinLore’s page says ETC could reach $69 by 2030, but that is its bull case, about 10 times the current price.

All forecasts are third-party model estimates, not investment advice.

ETC Price Prediction 2040

Long-range forecasts are highly speculative. CoinCodex projects about $11.83 by 2040, the top of its December 2040 range and about 69% above today’s price. CoinLore is far more optimistic, with a base case of $105.20 and a bull case of $296.90, the figure its page quotes for 2040.

What Drives the ETC Price?

• Supply schedule: the 5M20 policy cut the block reward to 1.6384 ETC on July 22, so new issuance is about 10,450 ETC a day, about 2.4% of the supply a year, and the next 20% cut is due around 2028.
• Mining and security: ETC’s official site calls it the largest proof-of-work smart contract platform. Its security depends on hashrate, which was roughly 190 TH/s in late October, by our estimate from block difficulty on the Blockscout explorer.
• Governance: the dispute over Olympia’s treasury, which F2Pool, 2Miners and Antpool have opposed in writing, and the timing of any next hard fork.
• ETF and trust products: Grayscale’s ETCG trust held about 6.9% of the circulating supply at the end of June, and we found no spot ETC ETF filing on SEC EDGAR.
• The wider market: like most altcoins, ETC tends to move with Bitcoin and overall risk appetite, as on February 5, when ETC fell 14% and Bitcoin about 14%. Our Bitcoin price prediction covers the market leader.

Can ETC Reach $100 or Its Record?

Only on CoinLore’s figures. Its base case passes $100 in 2040 ($105.20), and its bull cases pass $100 from 2033 and the $176.16 record from 2037 ($194.73). CoinCodex’s figures for 2040 and 2050 are $11.83 and $30.11.

ETC last closed above $100 on May 14, 2021. With about 158.9 million ETC in circulation, each price level implies a market cap that can be compared with other coins.

At $100, ETC’s circulating market cap would be about 2% above its record of about $15.6 billion from May 6, 2021, and its fully diluted value at the 210.7 million ceiling would be about $21.1 billion. At its $176.16 record price, the market cap would be about 1.8 times that record, because about 42.5 million more ETC have been mined since May 2021.

With new supply still growing by about 2.4% a year, a higher price would have to come from demand:

• More use of the network
• Steady mining security
• A settlement of the fee-market dispute
• A strong altcoin market

Our Litecoin price prediction covers another proof-of-work coin.

Key Risks of ETC

• Deep drawdown: ETC trades about 96% below its 2021 high, about 72% below its end-2024 close and about 54% lower than a year ago
• 51% attack history: three reorganization attacks hit ETC in 2020, and its security depends on hashrate that can move between chains
• Governance dispute: the mining pools F2Pool, 2Miners and Antpool have said they will not mine any version that implements Olympia, and no date has been set for the next hard fork
• Client risk: a Core-Geth emergency patch in March addressed an active attack on bootnodes, and a disputed v1.13.0 release briefly ran on some mining nodes in September
• Ongoing issuance: about 10,450 new ETC a day, about 2.4% of the supply a year, has to be absorbed by buyers
• Data gaps: CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko disagree on the all-time high ($176.16 vs $167.09) and low ($0.45 vs $0.615)
• Model limits: most forecasts extrapolate past prices, and the central 2030 estimates we track range from a fall of about 41% to a gain of about 86%

Where to Buy ETC

ETC has spot markets on major exchanges including Binance (ETC/USDT, ETC/BTC and ETC/TRY), Coinbase (ETC/USD), Kraken (ETC/USD, ETC/EUR and ETC/BTC), OKX (ETC/USDT) and Crypto.com (ETC/USD), and on Upbit and Bithumb in South Korea. CoinGecko also lists active ETC markets on Gate and Bybit.

Availability depends on your country, so check what each platform offers where you live. Our guide to the best crypto exchanges compares fees and features.

ETC runs on its own blockchain, so withdraw it only to a wallet that supports the Ethereum Classic network. ETC and ETH addresses look the same, which makes it easy to pick the wrong network. Our crypto wallets guide explains the trade-offs between wallet types.

Before acting on market-moving claims about ETC, such as upgrades, client releases or ETF filings, check them against primary sources; our guide on how to verify crypto news and rumors explains how.

Is Ethereum Classic (ETC) a Good Investment?

That depends on your view of proof of work, ETC’s capped emission policy and your tolerance for risk. The bull case rests on a schedule that cuts new issuance by 20% roughly every two years, ETC’s position as a large proof-of-work smart contract chain, live markets on every major exchange we checked and a trust product that held about 6.9% of the supply at the end of June.

The bear case is that ETC trades about 96% below its high, has a history of 51% attacks, faces an unresolved dispute over its next upgrade, and both central estimates we track see it ending 2026 below today’s price.

Further losses are possible. Hashrate, the outcome of the Olympia debate, client security, demand for trust and ETF products and the wider altcoin market are the main known factors that could affect ETC over the next year. For more forecasts across the market, see our crypto price predictions.

Data sources: CoinMarketCap (price, market cap, supply, all-time high and low, price history), CoinGecko (comparison market caps), the Blockscout explorer, the official Ethereum Classic website and blog, the ECIP repository, Core-Geth release notes on GitHub, nolympia.dev and SEC EDGAR (Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust filings).

Also: exchange data from Binance, Bithumb, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX and Upbit, reporting by The Block and crypto.news, and the forecast pages of CoinCodex and CoinLore. Market data and forecasts as of November 3, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Ethereum Classic price prediction for 2026?
Central estimates from the two models we track put ETC between about $6.30 and $6.81 at the end of 2026, against an early November price of about $6.99. CoinLore’s base case is $6.30 and CoinCodex expects a December average of about $6.81, both below that price. CoinLore’s bull case is $25.71, while its bear case is $4.20.

What is the ETC price prediction for 2030 and beyond?
Central 2030 estimates range from about $4.13 at CoinCodex to $13.00 at CoinLore, a fall of about 41% or a gain of about 86% from the early November price. CoinLore’s page mentions $69 for 2030, but that is its bull case. For 2040, CoinCodex projects about $11.83, while CoinLore’s base case is $105.20 and its bull case $296.90.

Can ETC reach $100 or its all-time high?
Only on CoinLore’s figures: its base case passes $100 in 2040, and its bull cases pass the $176.16 record from 2037. With about 158.9 million ETC in circulation, $100 would mean a market cap of about $15.9 billion, about 14 times its early November level and close to ETC’s May 2021 record of $15.6 billion. The all-time high would require about $28 billion.

What is Ethereum Classic and how is it different from Ethereum?
Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum chain, kept running by miners who rejected the July 2016 fork that reversed The DAO hack. Both run smart contracts, but Ethereum switched to proof of stake in 2022, while ETC still uses proof-of-work mining. ETC also has a fixed emission schedule that cuts rewards by 20% every 5 million blocks, with a ceiling of 210.7 million coins.

What drives the ETC price?
Supply, mining and demand. ETC’s 5M20 schedule cut the block reward to 1.6384 ETC in July 2026, so miners now add about 10,450 coins a day. Hashrate matters for security after the 2020 attacks. Grayscale’s ETCG trust held about 10.85 million ETC in June, and we found no spot ETC ETF filing. Like most altcoins, ETC also tends to follow Bitcoin and wider risk appetite.

Is Ethereum Classic a good investment?
That depends on your risk tolerance and your view of proof of work. Supporters point to its fixed supply schedule, the latest 20% cut in block rewards and live markets on major exchanges. Critics point to a 96% fall from the 2021 high, a history of 51% attacks and an unresolved dispute over its next upgrade. Both central forecasts we track see ETC ending 2026 below its current price.

Where can I buy ETC?
ETC trades on major exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX and Crypto.com, and on Upbit and Bithumb in South Korea. Availability depends on your country, so check each platform’s supported assets before buying. ETC runs on its own blockchain, so if you withdraw it, use a wallet that supports the Ethereum Classic network rather than sending it to an Ethereum address.

Nothing in this article is financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry substantial risk.

About the author

Freelance writer and crypto enthusiast with a focus on Web3, delivering clear and engaging articles. Known for his well-researched articles and insightful analysis, Shayan covers a broad range of topics including market trends, blockchain technology, decentralized finance (DeFi), and emerging crypto projects. His writing aims to educate both beginners and experts, providing clear, engaging content that helps readers stay informed about the fast-evolving crypto space. Shayan's expertise and dedication make him a trusted voice in the blockchain community.

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