Clarification of what happened has already appeared on the new Ethereum Classic account in a long thread. With the help of Cointelegraph's material, we've picked out the highlights of what's going on.

What happened to the Ethereum Classic Twitter account?

So, let’s start with the backstory. Hoskinson Input Output (IOHK) has previously made proposals to “improve” the Ethereum Classic protocol on two occasions: these were in December 2018 and September 2021. Both times, the proposed upgrades were rejected by the community, leading to a split between IOHK and ETC Cooperative, the non-profit altcoin developer organisation.

Given the developments, Charles Hoskinson began to speak ill of Ethereum Classic, calling it a “dead project”. That said, he was the one who had control of the community’s Twitter account until now. How did this happen?

Ethereum Classic’s new Twitter account

The account was created by a certain cryptocurrency enthusiast under the nickname ChuckSRQ. He later gave the login to the account to a team at IOHK, meaning the information fell into Hoskinson’s hands. He has de facto gained control of the account, though he himself has always been considered “public”: that is, one that belongs to the community. Here’s how ChuckSRQ argues for the transfer of rights.

I gave up my Ethereum Classic Twitter account because I didn’t want to devote the time and effort to it. If the team managing it now doesn’t believe in the project, they should give it to someone who wants to invest in it.

ChuckSRQ’s tweet about giving up his Ethereum Classic account

That is, Hoskinson was the “custodian” of the account even after the conflict between IOHK and Ethereum Classic. Everyone knew about the problem, and Hoskinson was repeatedly asked to hand over the data to people interested in the community. He ignored the requests, but later posted the following message.

Give it back? It’s my account. As for giving back, I can’t give back the millions of dollars spent on development or the years of time spent supporting a blockchain that didn’t seem to want to do anything but maintain the status quo. Let’s just assume we’re even.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson

In this quote, Hoskinson alludes to the “ingratitude” of Ethereum Classic fans: allegedly IOHK invested heavily in the project while getting rejected on its upgrade offer, plus Hoskinson was also involved in its development. More fuel was added to the fire by a quote in the Cardano head’s video, where he openly insinuates that the account is his “trophy”. This sparked outrage from Bob Summerville, executive director of ETC Cooperative.

What followed was nothing but escalation. In late September, after the video was published, Hoskinson began openly threatening the altcoin community. Here’s the quote.

You’re right, Bob. I really should use this account for something. I’ll give my team a task about it.

Actually, almost two weeks after the tweet, Charles Hoskinson made his threat a reality – he renamed the account so that it now “belongs” to the Ergo community. The project has gained hundreds of thousands of followers overnight, though many of them certainly don’t like it very much.

The old Ethereum Classic account, which is now called Ergo

As a reminder, Ergo positions itself as “a next-generation smart contracts platform that provides economic freedom for ordinary people through secure, accessible and decentralised financial instruments”. But that’s not so important. What is important is that Hoskinson has been actively promoting Ergo since 2019, when the project’s main network was launched.

Ergo blockchain project website

That’s the end of the story for now – the original Ethereum Classic account remains under the control of the Ergo developers. To get it back, we’ll probably have to take the conflict to the Twitter level. Still, we’re talking about a community that has more than half a million followers, but now the new altcoin account has only hundreds of them.


We believe that such actions by Charles Hoskinson could have a negative impact on his reputation. Although he is related to ETC project and got his Twitter credentials from another person, by doing so he seriously worsened the situation for Ethereum Classic fans, who at least temporarily lost their verified channel of communication. All in all, this doesn't look like the most fair of competition, so Charles has clearly made some new enemies online.


Stay tuned for more developments in our Millionaire Cryptochat. We talk about many other topics there.

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