ETC · the reward cut has already happened.

Mining is the only thing that creates an ETC, and the reward already stepped down inside this window. The chain produced 574,333 blocks over the 90 days at a real pace of 13.54 seconds each, a little slower than the 13 seconds it targets, so the quarter issued about 4% less than a target-based read would claim. The first 323,002 of those blocks paid 2.048 ETC and the remaining 251,331 paid 1.6384, because the 20% reduction fired at block 25,000,000 on Jul 22 2026 — read straight off the chain, where the block before it still paid 2.048. Uncle blocks add a further 2,791 ETC on top. The next quarter runs entirely at the lower rate.

There is no vesting schedule, no cliff and no lock contract on this chain. The only allocation that ever existed is the 2014 genesis distribution of 72,009,990 units, which went to public buyers more than ten years ago and has no release calendar attached to it. Circulating supply sits just 967 ETC below total supply, which is what a chain with no locked bucket looks like.

There is no foundation coin reserve and no protocol treasury to unlock from. Every unit of the block reward goes to the miner, the non-profit that maintains the chain is funded by its backers rather than endowed with coins, and it publishes no reserve wallet or balance. The one thing worth watching is a proposed fee-market upgrade that would create the chain's first protocol treasury, funded by the base fee; it is still a draft with no activation block, so nothing enters this row yet. No public evidence of release in window — monitored.

There is no bankruptcy estate holding ETC, but two large blocks of coins sit outside the tradable float and both are watched rather than booked. A listed US trust held 10,850,162.72 ETC at Jun 30 2026 — about 6.9% of supply — with 13,993,800 shares outstanding at both ends of the half-year, no creations, no redemptions, and a filing that states it does not operate a redemption program and has no intention of seeking approval for one. Its only outflow is the in-kind sponsor fee, 135,354 ETC over the six months. Separately, the largest dormant wallet on the chain holds about 3.36M ETC, roughly 2.1% of supply, and has never sent an outbound transaction in its entire history; the most recent entry in its log is an inbound dust transfer in Mar 2022. If either balance falls between refreshes, the outflow enters this row at the next refresh.

Nothing buys ETC back, because the protocol keeps no revenue to buy it with. The block reward and the transaction fees both leave the protocol in the same instant and in the same output, paid straight to whoever found the block. No entity runs a scheduled purchase and no corporate reserve programme has been announced for this coin. No public evidence of release in window — monitored.

No ETC is destroyed, and that was measured on both surfaces rather than assumed. The chain never adopted the fee-burning upgrade its larger sibling did — its block headers carry no base-fee field at all, so fees are paid to the miner in full and none is removed. The keyless addresses were then checked directly: across the whole quarter they took in 1.1 ETC between them, in 408 dust transfers, and coins parked there stay inside the counted supply forever anyway. A widely discussed upgrade would add a fee market later, but it routes the fee to a treasury rather than destroying it.

There is no balance sheet to do the buying. The chain has no endowment, no treasury contract and no DAO holding coins, and the group that maintains the protocol pays for that work out of donations rather than out of a coin reserve. No public evidence of release in window — monitored.

This is pure proof-of-work. There is no staking, no bonding, no validator deposit and no lockup contract, so a holder has no protocol-level way to take coins off the tradable float. The only floor under this reading is the reward schedule, never a lock.