What is Bitcoin Gold ?
Bitcoin Gold is a split from Bitcoin that occurred on October 24, 2017. The project was founded for several reasons, including expansion with the growth of the cryptocurrency customer base, or because of conflicting developers and differences of goals.
The stated purpose of Bitcoin Gold was to make Bitcoin decentralized again.
Bitcoin Gold has been one of the biggest and most discussed Bitcoin splits.
On the surface, the idea of “decentralizing Bitcoin again” may seem illogical. Like all other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is designed to be truly decentralized; It is not associated with any central bank, specific country or government body.
However, one of the main problems with Bitcoin that prompted the development of Bitcoin Gold, was not related to the issue of centralization at all, as much as it had to do with the mining process.
Bitcoin Gold developers believe that by adopting a new mining process algorithm (in this case, the so-called proof-of-work algorithm called Equihash-BTG), the new branch of the world's most popular cryptocurrency by market capitalization will not be disproportionate to its fork. .
Understanding Bitcoin Gold
Bitcoin mining is a profitable but resource-intensive process.
Often the most profitable mining projects are those that combine several mining rigs, each of which requires expensive special equipment.
Individuals trying to mine bitcoin on their own either have to invest a huge amount of money and time in setting up their own mining rigs or bypass this process, as their computers cannot compete with professional mining hardware.
One of the primary goals of Bitcoin Gold was to change the algorithm by which the cryptocurrency itself is mined, which means that the mining process cannot run on specialized hardware faster than it can run on standard computer systems.
Bitcoin Gold was not the first major Bitcoin fork.
Bitcoin Cash split from the primary cryptocurrency on August 1, 2017.
On November 15, 2018, Bitcoin Cash was again split into two currencies:
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
Protection and Transparency:
Besides the goal of “decentralizing” Bitcoin and making digital currencies more accessible to owners of smaller mining hardware and that can be distributed more fairly and efficiently, Bitcoin Gold developers have also focused on security and transparency issues.
Unlike other blockchain networks (including Bitcoin), Bitcoin Gold seeks to increase anonymity by not publishing transaction details or wallet addresses, as a free open source community project, which is expected by its decentralized and transparent nature in the Bitcoin Gold community.
However, threats from hackers and other malicious entities are a constant concern.
In the world of cryptocurrencies, Proof of Work micro-blockchains such as Bitcoin Gold are particularly vulnerable to 51% attacks, as the attacker seeks to control 51% or more of the computing power or hash rate of the blockchain.
While Bitcoin Gold has claimed that it has implemented additional security and protection measures since its launch, such as full reboot protection - in an effort to help secure its customers' accounts and coins, the blockchain has suffered three attacks with a rate of 51% and the BTG wallet has been subjected to multiple thefts.
The last 51% attacks occurred in January 2020.
The first attack in January 2020 resulted in a hacker stealing 1,900 BTG, or $19,000.
In the second operation, approximately 5,267 BTG, or $5,300 were stolen.
In the wake of the May 2018 loss of 388,000 BTG, or roughly $18 million, crypto exchange Bittrex has opted to cancel BTG trading.
This first incident required Bitcoin Gold to update its mining algorithm to the “Equihash-BTG” algorithm.
Bitcoin Gold History:
Bitcoin Gold's legacy has been mired in controversy from the start.
On the same day of the October 2017 launch, BTG experienced a massive DDoS attack on its cloud site, and within days after the launch, miners accused a Bitcoin Gold developer of adding a 0.5% mining fee that was hidden from the developer partners.
There was also concern that Bitcoin Gold's security measures were not as robust as initially claimed and that these flaws might lead to increased vulnerability to threats.
Project management retroactively returned 100,000 BTG units after the split had already occurred.
The way this happened was by rapidly mining about 8,000 blocks, the results of which were set aside as a “gift” of some sort, to be used in the growth and maintenance of the broader Bitcoin Gold network. About 5% of these 100,000, cryptocurrencies were set aside for each of the six core team members as a bonus.
The remaining 95,000 blocks were set aside to support the growth of the BTG community's ecosystem.
BTG digital currency and trading platforms:
Despite initially skepticism, Bittrex eventually agreed to list Bitcoin Gold.
Their biggest concern was that Bitcoin Gold did not have full consensus code, nor did they have replay protection implementation and code suitable for testing, review, and generally known code developers.
Similarly, they gave their users the following warning:
The Bitcoin database also contains a special initial offer of 8,000 out of 100,000 BTG.
Please be aware that if the market opens, there is a possibility that the developers will sell BTG on the open market.
After the May 2018 51% attack, Bittrex requested more than 12,000 BTG (valued at $255,000 at the time), as compensation from Bitcoin Gold to offset the loss incurred by the exchange.
Bitcoin Gold did not compensate Bittrex, which led to its delisting.
At the time of launch, all bitcoin holders were expected to receive bitcoin gold at the rate of one bitcoin gold token for every one bitcoin token, a process known asAirdrop.
Trading platform Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, was particularly skeptical of Bitcoin Gold at the time of the launch.
Coinbase and BTG:
Unlike Bittrex, Coinbase eventually decided to keep BTG off the platform.
Coinbase representatives have stated that Bitcoin Gold cannot be supported because its developers have not made the code publicly available for review.
This represents a major security risk.
Coinbase did not drop BTG to Bitcoin owners on its platform when it was released in October 2017, and this action led to Coinbase being sued by plaintiff Daniel Archer on March 27, 2018, claiming that Coinbase had You specifically violated the terms of its Contract Agreement with negligence, diversion and breach of contract.
The original ruling stated that Coinbase's agreement with Archer did not include any part that required Coinbase to provide services for cryptocurrency from third parties.
In August 2020, the Court of Appeal confirmed the court's original summary judgment in favor of Queen Piece.
Continuing the long-term downtrend for the dwindling currency as Bitcoin Gold continues to stay afloat, as of June 1, 2021, Bitcoin Gold has 89 nodes to reach.
The highest knot concentration is in Germany (22 knots), with the next highest levels in the United States (18), France (8), Canada (6) and the Netherlands (6).
Bitcoin Gold Availability in Trading Platforms:
As the Bittrex and Coinbase examples show us, for all cryptocurrencies, one of the key factors that help determine short- and long-term success is their availability in cryptocurrency exchanges.
Users must be able to access the cryptocurrency in the trading platforms in order to make transactions.
According to Bitcoin Gold, as of June 1, 2021, the cryptocurrency has been traded directly on Bithumb, Bitfinex, Binance, HitBTC, Uphold, Exmo, Gate.io, BitBay, Huobi, Cex.io, Okex, Unocoin, Coinone, Koineks and Coinfeld Coindirect, Zebpay, NiceHash, LATOKEN, Bione, p2p b2b, Folgory, WhiteBIT, Bitubu, Indodax, Vindax, Coinbit, Probit, Wazirx, BW, CoinDCX, VeBitcoin, Huobi Global.
The cryptocurrency is also available through more than 20 wallets, including Trezor Wallet, Ledger Wallet, Exodus, Coinomi, Guarda, Freewallet, BTGWallet, and Kasse.
According to the website, the cryptocurrency was listed on more than 40 trading platforms against 11 national currencies as of June 1, 2021.
The future of Bitcoin Gold:
In the longer term, Bitcoin Gold will conduct research on smart contracts, blockchain democracy, and develop a decentralized cryptocurrency brokerage network.
According to the 2021 BTG roadmap, key focus areas for development include interoperability, applications, infrastructure, and light and fast networks.
BTG cites plans for two-way work with blockchain networks and other ecosystems, indicating that a bridge to its network is in progress.
They indicated that they plan to shift from a board-based governance structure to a modern DAO-based model.
Updates to core items in their technology suite are underway, and updates to some of these items, such as the Explorers and ElectrumG, are nearing completion.
BTG notes that while transaction volumes and fees currently do not require a Layer 2 “lightning” network solution yet, they are on its radar.
Bitcoin Gold FAQ:
What happened to Bitcoin Gold?
Bitcoin Gold was a split from Bitcoin, the open source project that was founded on October 24, 2017.
As of September 9, 2021, Bitcoin Gold is valued at $70 with a 24-hour trading volume of about $56 million.
What is the difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Gold?
Both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Gold use the Proof of Work (mining) algorithm.
However, the Equihash-BTG algorithm does not disproportionately favor major mining operations over specialized hardware.
Bitcoin miners use the SHA-256 hash algorithm and determine the hash value, because proof of work is more difficult to show as hash targets change.
As this becomes more difficult, the increase in computing power required for mining also increases, which means that smaller miners have a disadvantage in terms of the computing power they can produce.
What is the most important use of Bitcoin Gold?
Bitcoin Gold is used for applications including smart contracts and open source bridges for computing technology and payments.