Elizabeth Kukko , director of Ethereum Classic’s (ETC) investment division ETC Labs disclosed that it will cooperate with as up to 24 startups each year. The information was confirmed by Kukko in an interview.
Furthermore, Kukko revealed that six projects, which have been selected already, are presently involved in a pilot program with ETC blockchain, with full incubator planned to be launched in Q1 2019.
Regarding the program, Kukko said
“The goal of this pilot program is to put the incubator model to work and get feedback from these initial teams before going live.”
The decision has been announced at a time when Ethereum Classic (ETC) continues to drop in its rankings, partially driven by the overall weakness in the crypto market.
Notably, in June, ETC’s prices rose 25% after the US crypto exchange Coinbase declared that it would add the token to its orderbook.
At the time of writing this article, ETC/USD traded around $9.69, up 1.14% from yesterday’s close. The cryptocurrency hit $9.55 yesterday, the lowest since May 2017. However, its market cap still remains over $1 billion.
Regarding the decision to work off the network, Kukko said
“[We chose] Ethereum Classic because there is a lot of security on the main layer, and it doesn’t really matter what sidechains are used in conjunction to this. Also, the Ethereum Classic space is very competitive, with a lot of good ideas and startups with immense potential for growth.”
Kukko did not disclose the details of the projects being administered, but added that “technical capabilities of the team and their ability to build on the ETC blockchain” were major requirements for consideration of new ventures.
So far, according to the information provided by ETC Labs claims, there have been 120 interested applicants willing to participate in the program.