First published 2 July 2021, the day after the rename. Expanded in October 2026 so a million-unit display is not described as a new pile of coins, and so the staking layer is not described as Avalanche the network. eCash is a proof-of-work chain. Amaury Séchet leads the software. It is the chain that left Bitcoin Cash on 15 November 2020, first under the name Bitcoin Cash ABC. What is Bitcoin Cash (BCH)? is the ticker exchanges kept. What is Bitcoin, in plain language? did not fork that afternoon. What is Bitcoin SV (BSV)? is an earlier split, from 2018. Three tickers, three chains.
The 2020 split was over a rule that would send a slice of each block reward to a developer fund. One side activated it. The other did not. On 1 July 2021 at 12:00 UTC the ABC chain changed its display. One old coin, one BCHA, shows as 1,000,000 XEC. The project said holders did not have to swap anything. The chain record did not change. A wallet that still says BCHA and a wallet that says XEC can be looking at the same coins with different labels. Sending 1,000,000 XEC to a wallet that still counts in the old unit is one coin, not a million new ones. A price times 21 trillion XEC is the same ceiling as 21 million of the old unit, the Bitcoin-style cap this chain inherited, including the halving clock.
The address format changed with the rename. An old address is not automatically the string a new wallet shows. Two chains that share a history can spend the same old coins twice if a transaction is valid on both. This page will not describe how. The wrong network is still the wrong city.
Mining still produces the blocks. The project added a staking layer it also calls Avalanche, meant to settle blocks faster. That layer is not Avalanche (AVAX). What is Avalanche (AVAX)? is a different chain. Staking here is not a savings account. This page will not walk through mining or staking. Nothing here is an instruction to split a wallet, to rename a balance, or to buy XEC.
