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The eCash Fork Was a Dress Rehearsal. The Real One Is on Halloween

By Mahamat Ashraf • •5 min read
The eCash Fork Was a Dress Rehearsal. The Real One Is on Halloween

An eCash chain began producing blocks alongside Bitcoin on August 23, at block height 963,648.

Bitcoin holders did not receive permanent ECX. What the alpha phase distributed was practice tokens called pECX.

The permanent 1:1 allocation now sits at block 973,728, estimated around October 31.

Correcting Our Earlier Coverage

Optimisus previewed this fork earlier in August, reporting a target of block 964,000 around August 21 with a 1:1 credit to bitcoin holders at that split.

That reflected the roadmap as published at the time. The project has since restructured the launch into three stages, and the permanent allocation moved to October.

Anyone who read that piece and expected ECX in their wallet this week should know the schedule changed rather than that the event failed.

The Three Stages

Each phase is triggered by Bitcoin block height rather than by calendar date, which is why the dates are approximate. Blocks arrive faster or slower than the ten-minute average.

Alpha activated at block 963,648 on August 23. Mempool.space recorded that block with a timestamp of 2026-08-23 01:48:47. During this phase participants can test software, mining, wallet functionality and trading of pECX.

Beta is scheduled near block 967,680, around September 20. The stated focus is integrating exchanges, wallets and developers, and the project has noted that trading activity in this phase may establish a market price for pECX.

Mainnet is set for block 973,728, around October 31. Permanent ECX is issued at that snapshot, and pECX from the earlier phases converts through a burn-and-exchange process.

Founder Paul Sztorc has said 1,000 pECX could be redeemed for 10 ECX, a ratio worth verifying against project documentation before acting on it.

PhaseBlock heightApproximate dateWhat is issued
Alpha963,648August 23, 2026pECX practice tokens
Beta967,680September 20, 2026pECX, exchange and wallet integration
Mainnet973,728October 31, 2026Permanent ECX, 1:1 with BTC

Why October 31

The date is not incidental. October 31, 2026 marks the 18th anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper’s release.

The project has also said it expects its first batch of specialized sidechains to become available at that snapshot.

eCash is built by LayerTwo Labs under Paul Sztorc, creator of BIP-300 and BIP-301, the Drivechain proposals Bitcoin’s developers never adopted. Both remain proposals rather than active Bitcoin features.

The design intent is a separate network that copies Bitcoin’s ledger at designated snapshots and then follows its own rules, without altering Bitcoin itself.

What Is Still Unresolved

Three things matter and none is settled.

Replay protection remains unresolved. A transaction broadcast on one chain could, under certain conditions, cause problems on the other if coins have not been properly separated.

That was the mechanism that made the failed BIP-110 split dangerous, covered by Optimisus in the piece on a fork that drew 2.53% and split the chain anyway.

Final software is not complete. The alpha exists to expose bugs before the permanent chain goes live, which is the argument for the phased approach.

Exchange treatment is undecided. Coincheck has indicated it might temporarily suspend BTC deposits and withdrawals around the fork if security requires. Most platforms have not announced whether they will distribute ECX at all.

The Custody Question

This is the part with a direct practical consequence.

The ECX snapshot credits coins to Bitcoin addresses. Whoever holds the private keys controls the matching ECX.

If your BTC sits on an exchange at block 973,728, the exchange holds those keys and therefore controls the forked asset. Whether you receive anything depends entirely on that platform’s policy.

Self-custody removes the intermediary. It also means you are responsible for splitting the coins safely, and doing that wrong is how people lose real BTC during forks.

The operational decisions still pending from major exchanges are deposit and withdrawal freeze windows around the snapshot, whether they credit the 1:1 distribution, and address separation protocols to prevent accidental cross-deposits.

The Naming Hazard

The fork uses the ticker ECX while marketing under the eCash brand, which is already used by an existing cryptocurrency trading as XEC.

XEC is a fork of Bitcoin Cash and is unrelated to this project.

That collision raises the risk of fake wallet releases and malicious claim portals ahead of October, which is a predictable pattern around any airdrop-style event with a fixed date.

Anyone searching for claim software should verify the source against the project’s own channels rather than a search result.

What Holders Should Actually Do

Nothing is required before October 31. Bitcoin ownership is unaffected, and the alpha chain running in parallel changes nothing about BTC.

If you intend to ignore ECX entirely, ignoring it is safe and complete.

Custody policy is the variable, and Optimisus has covered how quickly access routes can close in the piece on South Korea restricting offshore funding.

If you intend to claim it, the two decisions worth making before the snapshot are where your coins sit and whether that custodian has published a policy. Both take minutes to check now and are unfixable afterwards.

The wider fork calendar has been unusually busy this year, and Optimisus has tracked how these events resolve in coverage of the BIP-110 split. That one produced two blocks in eight hours. eCash is attempting the opposite approach, with two rehearsals before the real thing.

Sources

This is not financial advice.

Optimisus covers crypto and technology news for readers who want the detail behind the headline.

Topics
#Bitcoin #Crypto #Drivechain #eCash #ECX #Hard Fork #Paul Sztorc #Self-Custody