Another fork is upon us. The Bitcoin Gold fork is about to take place, and although the expectations for it are not too high, it is always nice to get some free bitcoin. Although this time you might have to wait before you cash in, the snap shot will take place a little over a day from now. Like any other fork, the safest bet is to make sure you keep your bitcoin in a wallet in which you control the private keys. Then you will have to follow the instructions to know how to get your free bitcoin out of this fork.
What You Need to Know About the Bitcoin Gold Fork
With that being said, this one seems to be the least contentious of all forks merely because it will create a different altcoin. The Bitcoin Gold fork is not about taking control of the bitcoin network, or any other kind of political posture vis-à-vis legacy Bitcoin. This fork is about creating a new, more “democratic” coin based on most of bitcoin’s principles.
Bitcoin Gold Features
As such, Bitcoin Gold – apparently its ticker symbol will be BTG – has some interesting characteristics that make it differ from legacy bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and 2X. Here is a list of its main features:
- Supply is capped at 21 million just like BTC.
- Block interval is 10 minutes as well.
- Its block size will be 1mb.
- BTG will have SegWit.
- Replay protection was built into it.
- Unique address formats were created to avoid confusion.
- Difficulty adjustment will take place after every block mined.
- Miners will be able to use GPU mining only.
- The PoW algorithm will be different. To restrict the use of ASIC miners, the creators of BTG are implementing an algorithm they call Equihash.
Bitcoin Gold Fork: The Democratic Alternative?
If Equihash really works, then it is possible to see how the Bitcoin Gold fork will create a more democratic coin. Some might disagree, pointing to the fact that what makes Bitcoin democratic, is actually the right to run a node; miners merely provide a service for the owners of those nodes and are rewarded for it. Nevertheless, it would be nice to go back to the day in which GPU mining was still relevant, even if people who have more GPUs will have an advantage that seems to be impossible to erase. So, if GPU mining is something you are interested in or if you have a bunch of old GPUs you are looking to use again, Bitcoin Gold mining might be profitable for you.
What Will be New After the Bitcoin Gold Fork?
This GPU mining only feature might generate some enthusiasm among cryptocurrency users. After the Bitcoin Gold fork, the new altcoin must go beyond that to survive and thrive. That is where it seems to fall short. Basically, it doesn’t do anything that Bitcoin can’t do except guarantee that there will not be a few companies controlling the production of mining equipment.
Bitcoin Gold Price
Therefore, the price of BTG is not expected to be too high. A recent article on The Merkle put Bitcoin Gold futures at anywhere between 0.045BTC and 0.07BTC. Not bad for the hodlers out there looking for a 4.5% to 7% one-time free coin dividend, but maybe not interesting enough to hold or to mine for – depending on how much electricity costs where you will be mining from. Unless the contentious SegWit2X fork puts a dent in legacy bitcoin. In that case, it seems that the closest coin to BTC pre-2X fork will actually be Bitcoin Gold.
Bitcoin Gold Fork Date
Whether you want to use it as a hedge or you want to use it as an opportunity to get some free bitcoin, what you need to know is that the snap shot will take place on October 25th, 2017. To be more precise, the fork will take place at block 491407. You will be given 1 BTG for every BTC on the day of the Bitcoin Gold fork snap shot. After that, there will not be a time limit on splitting your coins; you will be able to claim your coins when you are ready to do so after the snap shot is taken. Just make sure you hold your own private keys. Exchanges and other services that hold your private keys for you, might or might not give you the BTG you are entitled to.
Click here to visit the Bitcoin Gold official website and find out more.
