By
Kseniia Klichova
April 16th, 2024
Another bitcoin hard fork is to take place soon: new Bitcoin Gold aims to make bitcoin network truly decentralized by demonopolizing mining industry.
After the advent of Bitcoin Cash, offspring of the August 1 hard fork, many crypto enthusiasts have been preparing for a next fork to take place this November according to the Segwit2x plan. It’s no wonder that very few bitcoiners know about another fork called “Bitcoin Gold” (BTG) that’s scheduled to take place as early as on October 25th.
Bitcoin Gold Joins Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?
The main idea of bitcoin gold project, first announced on Bitcointalk.org in July, is to release an improved protocol, which is to change bitcoin’s consensus algorithm allowing users to mine the currency with graphic processing units (GPU). According to the team behind the project, Bitcoin Gold will use the Equihash algorithm instead of bitcoin’s original SHA256.
The website archive explains:
“Bitcoin Gold implements the UAHF (User Activated Hard Fork) proposal to accept GPU mining. Miners can choose the size of the blocks they want to mine, with a default of 1 MB. It includes replay and wipeout protection.”
The BTG project, Led by Jack Liao, CEO of Hong Kong mining firm LightningASIC, aims to follow a similar launch plan as bitcoin cash, which split from bitcoin this summer through a “hard fork”. The new token is scheduled to launch on October 25, being opened to exchanges on November 1.
Despite the project was announced back in July, only now crypto enthusiasts are becoming more or less aware of the news of the Bitcoin Gold fork. While whispers of the event are just beginning to spread, some believe the upcoming fork is just another distraction in an already divided community, or a “troll” attempt to create confusion and dilute the power of the Bitcoin Cash fork and Segwit2x.
Still, there are those, who seem rather excited about the new fork. These are primarily members of the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel (which currently hosts around 250 members), or project’s followers in Twitter and Facebook.
Is There Any Chance for Success?
While some are skeptical about bitcoin gold, others may find it really attractive due to the main project’s goal – to create a truly decentralized bitcoin.
Replacement of bitcoin’s original algorithm SHA256 with Equihash, which will ensble mining with graphics cards (GPU) is believed to open up mining to more participants making big miners less relevant.
If executed, BTG is likely to become a remedy for “mining monopolists” – for example such firms as Bitmain, criticized for having too much of an influence over the network.
Still, it must be understood that implementation of ambitious plan to create a network that grows so popular, as to remove miners is surely easier said than done.
In affition, according to Zhao Dong, a cryptocurrency trader and investor, GPU mining can’t serve as a means for preventing centralization, as GPU markets are controlled by Nvidia and AMD.
Bitcoin Gold’s ICO
According to the website archive, bitcoin gold plans to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) to “help BTG chain the longest Bitcoin blockchain” and “use all rised BTC to hire developers, advertisement, etc.” The new token is planned to be sold at 10BTG=1BTC (the latter, according to the CoinMarketCap makes $434 at a press time). ICO dates and amount of tokens to be sold are not specified though.
The only thing that is clear about the funding is that every bitcoin user at the time will have an equal amount of bitcoin gold associated with their private key.
After bitcoin cash forked earlier this summer a number of experts argued that more forks would follow. Now, given the upcoming fork, it seems that predictions are coming true.