eCash Airdrop: How to Claim Your Free ECX
Updated: 23 hours ago
If you held your own Bitcoin keys when eCash forked, you were given free coins. One ECX for every Bitcoin you held.
You did not have to sign up, and you did not miss a deadline. The coins are already yours.
There is one thing worth doing, and one thing worth avoiding. Both are below.
What the eCash airdrop is
eCash is a hard fork of Bitcoin. At block 973,728 the chain split in two, and every Bitcoin balance was copied onto the new chain.
Your Bitcoin is untouched. Nothing was taken from it and nothing about it changed. You simply now hold a second coin as well, at the same addresses.
That is the whole airdrop. There is no form, no website, no registration and no expiry.
Do I actually have ECX?
If your Bitcoin was in a wallet where you control the keys, yes. Hardware wallet, desktop wallet, phone wallet, paper backup. One ECX per BTC.
If your Bitcoin was on an exchange, you did not hold the keys, so it is that exchange's decision. Some credit forked coins and some keep them. Ask them in writing and do not count on it.
If you bought Bitcoin after the fork, those coins came with no ECX attached.
How to claim your eCash airdrop
There is nothing to claim. The coins exist at your addresses already, and any site offering to claim them for you is a scam.
What you do need to do is separate them from your Bitcoin. Until you do, the two move together.
The official eCash wallets do this for you. The mobile wallet has a button called "Check for splittable coins", and BitWindow does the same on desktop. If you use another wallet, the steps are in our guide to splitting BTC and ECX.
Why it is worth doing now
Two reasons, and the second one is the real one.
The first is that it is free money. You were given something and it costs you a few minutes and a small fee to take control of it.
The second is that ignoring it can cost you the coins without you ever noticing. Your ECX sits at the same addresses as your Bitcoin, so a Bitcoin transaction can be mirrored onto eCash. You send Bitcoin to someone, and your eCash goes to them too, in the same amount, at the same moment.
Nothing warns you. The coins are simply gone, and you never knew you had them.
How to spot eCash airdrop scams
A fork with free coins attached draws scammers, and the ads have already started. Three rules cover nearly all of them.
Nobody needs your recovery phrase. Not to claim, not to verify, not to check eligibility. Anyone asking for it is stealing from you, no matter how official the page looks.
There is no claim site. If a page asks you to connect a wallet to receive ECX, it is fake. You do not need a transaction to receive coins you already own.
Do not import your real keys into anything you are testing. If you want to practice, use a throwaway wallet and a small amount.
Common questions
Is the eCash airdrop free?
Yes. You were not charged and you did not buy anything. Separating your coins costs a small network fee on the eCash side.
Did I miss the eCash airdrop?
Only if you did not hold your own Bitcoin keys at the fork block. There was no window to miss, and there is no deadline now.
Is eCash the same as XEC?
No. They are two different projects that share a name. ECX is the Bitcoin hard fork with drivechains. XEC is an older coin from the Bitcoin Cash side of the family.
Do I need to do anything to keep my ECX?
To keep it safely, yes. Separate it from your Bitcoin before you next spend Bitcoin from those addresses.
How much is ECX worth?
That is set by whatever market exists at the time. Early markets for forked coins are thin and move hard. Treat any figure you see as a snapshot.
Can I sell my ECX?
Yes, through swap services and the exchanges that have listed it. Our buying guide covers the routes in both directions.
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