Bitcoin’s ECX Fork Is Coming: When It Hits and Who Gets Free Coins

The launch comes from Layertwo Labs, founded and led by longtime Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc, also known as Truthcoin. The play is not to rewrite Bitcoin itself. Instead, ECX will become a separate network that copies Bitcoin’s transaction ledger at designated snapshots and hands most bitcoin holders an equal number of coins on the new chain. Someone holding 1 $BTC in a wallet they control at the snapshot will receive 1 ECX on the new network, while the original $BTC stays exactly where it was.

That distinction is critical. A hard fork creates a separate version of a blockchain after sharing the same historical record. ECX will take Bitcoin’s existing ledger as its starting point, but it will run its own software settings, mining difficulty, nodes, and economic activity. Bitcoin users do not have to participate, and their $BTC is not converted, locked, or moved. The fork simply creates another asset attached to the same wallet addresses at the snapshot.

ECX Will Leverage a 3-Phase Launch

According to Sztorc, the alpha phase is designed as a live-fire rehearsal. Participants can run software, mine, trade practice coins, test wallets, and hunt for cracks in the system. The practice coins, called pECX or alpha ECX, are not permanent.