eCash

On 15 November 2020, competing Bitcoin Cash implementations separated. Bitcoin Cash Node kept the BCH name and ticker; the Bitcoin ABC branch traded as BCHA. Its inherited ledger was continuous with Bitcoin Cash up to the fork, while its future rules included ASERT difficulty adjustment and a development allocation.

Calling July 2021 the launch of a wholly new token erases that origin. The asset now called XEC is the native coin of the ABC branch, with its own chain history since the split.

At noon UTC on 1 July 2021, the project adopted the eCash name and changed the wallet and exchange denomination: one BCHA became 1,000,000 XEC. The same UTXOs represented the same proportional stake in supply; no issuer received old coins and no bridge minted claims against them.

The choice produced a 21-trillion-XEC headline cap and two decimal places. One XEC corresponds to 100 of the inherited smallest ledger units, so the million-fold number is accounting scale rather than monetary expansion.

SHA-256 miners still assemble the chain and compete through work. Avalanche-enabled nodes independently sample peers and weight replies through signed proofs of XEC stake. The two mechanisms therefore answer different questions: work proposes history, while Avalanche rapidly builds agreement about transactions and acceptable chain tips.

This is neither conventional proof of stake replacing mining nor a connection to the AVAX blockchain. The eCash implementation borrows the consensus family and anchors Sybil resistance in native XEC UTXOs.

Post-Consensus went live on 14 September 2022, giving Avalanche participants a way to finalize the mined chain and resist reorganizations after a block. Staking rewards followed on 15 November 2023.

Pre-Consensus activated much later, at block 923,347 on 15 November 2025. It lets nodes agree on transaction ordering before inclusion, which is the basis for the current under-three-second payment claim. A later overview dates Post-Consensus differently; the contemporaneous launch record is the stronger clock.

A Stake Proof references controlled UTXOs rather than depositing them in a smart contract. Each eligible staking output must be a Pay To Public Key Hash (P2PKH) UTXO, which assigns spending control to a public-key hash, containing at least 100,000,000 XEC with at least 2,016 confirmations. One Stake Proof may include several eligible UTXOs; the minimum applies to each output. The operator must keep an Avalanche-enabled node online.

Current documentation says the coins remain spendable, are not locked and face no slashing. Spending invalidates their proof weight, while downtime can prevent participation. The 10% block share is therefore compensation under current network policy, not interest automatically attached to a wallet balance.

Current policy directs 58% of each block reward to miners, 16% to protocol development, 16% to the Global Network Council and 10% to Avalanche stakers. The infrastructure plan describes recipient and amount as miner policy enforced by Avalanche acceptance rather than permanent consensus constants.

Bitcoin ABC leads node and protocol development and publishes releases on a six-month upgrade rhythm. Miners, staking nodes, exchanges and full nodes must install compatible software or fall out of sync. Ordinary XEC ownership does not itself grant a ballot over releases, a Council seat or a veto on funding recipients.

Native XEC has no token-contract owner able to pause a proxy or blacklist an address. That removes one class of administrator switch, but it does not make protocol evolution automatic: source maintainers propose code, miners construct coinbases, Avalanche nodes police acceptance and operators coordinate upgrades.

The public protocol pages do not turn XEC into equity in Bitcoin ABC, a claim on Council funds, a redeemable deposit or a fixed revenue share. What a holder can prove directly is control of UTXOs and the network functions attached to them.