On November 24, 2022, another hard fork took place on the Bitcoin network - Bitcoin Diamond. The hard fork occurred at block 495866, creating a new BCD chain.
It was initiated by a group of anonymous developers, according to which Bitcoin Diamond differs from Bitcoin in a 10-fold increased maximum emission volume, a block size of 8 MB, as well as a different mining algorithm (optimized X13; designed for GPU).
The Bitcoin Diamond blockchain features replay protection and SegWit support. After 10 years of rapid development of classic Bitcoin (BTC), the high transaction fees and network no longer meet the demands of the growing number of blockchain users. As a consequence, BTC has encountered various problems, which mainly consist of the following aspects:
- Lack of privacy protection.
- Slow transaction confirmations.
- High barrier to entry for new participants.
Reasons for the emergence of a new fork
Current Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) rate against the US dollar and trading volume over the last 24 hours:
Bitcoin Diamond is going to solve Bitcoin's mining and scalability problems by increasing the block size to 8 MB. According to the Bitcoin Diamond website:
The block generation speed will be increased fivefold, and the ultimate goal is to increase transaction confirmation speeds for the entire Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin Diamond uses corrected and more efficient algorithms, in addition, the creators of the new cryptocurrency claim that it will be more secure and anonymous than the original Bitcoin. Unlike the Bitcoin network, the new Bitcoin Diamond network will encrypt transaction amounts and balances .
Altcoins formed as a result of the Bitcoin fork, Bitcoin Diamond, will be distributed to Bitcoin holders in the proportion of 10 BCD per 1 BTC held on the balance sheet at the time of the network snapshot - November 24, 2022.
Is BCD a competitor to BTC?
No, this is a fork of Bitcoin with improved technology, which retains the original features of Bitcoin. A series of new encryption methods have been introduced, which further ensures customer confidentiality. Additionally, it increases the storage size and blocking rate of each block to an optimal value to speed up the entire transaction process on the Bitcoin Diamond network and minimize the production of isolated blocks.
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What is Bitcoin Diamond?
Diamond Bitcoin, Bitcoin Diamond, BCD is a fork of the main Bitcoin network that took place at block 495866, creating a new BCD chain. Bitcoin Diamond miners will begin creating blocks using a new proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm.
The project will progressively develop and improve account security and privacy based on the original BTC features. These new features lead to a fork in the chain: the original blockchain will continue to operate unchanged, but the new branch will address some issues in a new way.
BCD has the same transaction history with Bitcoin until November 24, 2017, until a unique block was generated after the fork.
How many BCDs will be produced?
The total volume of BCD is 210 million. This is a finite amount.
Currently 170 million BCD, 1BTC = 10BCD. They will be presented to Bitcoin holders for long-term support of the ecosystem. The remaining 40 million will be automatically transferred to the community reward pool as transaction and mining fees.
What problems does the new fork solve?
After nine years of rapid development of Bitcoin, high transaction fees and the network no longer meet the demands of the growing number of customers. Various problems have arisen, which mainly consist of the following aspects:
- Lack of privacy protection.
- Slow transaction confirmations.
- High barrier to entry for new participants.
How is replay protection implemented with the BTC network?
The so-called replay attack means that the transaction will be valid on one chain and on the other. This means that if someone wants to send BTC, they will also send BCD. To prevent this, a small change was made between BTC and BCD. Bitcoin Diamond will not accept the Bitcoin convention, which makes it independent of BTC.
Confidentiality and encryption of transaction information
In some scenarios, especially in many business processes or scenarios involving sensitive data (such as the income of company entities), cryptocurrency owners do not want to disclose their account balances for various reasons.
Encrypting the transaction amount can protect the confidentiality of personal funds and avoid complaints.
Also, some funds involve trade secrets of financial institutions, encryption can protect their money from publication and ensure their business security.
History of cryptocurrency Bitcoin Diamond
Now that you know what Bitcoin Diamond is, let's move on to the history of this cryptocurrency. On the official website of the OKEx exchange on November 22, 2017, visitors were able to see a message about the upcoming inclusion of BCD in the listing of the trading platform. In addition, it was announced that new crypto coins would be credited to users in the corresponding wallets in which BTC was previously stored. The fork from the main chain occurred on November 24, 2017 (after block 495866 in the BTC blockchain). This is where the history of Bitcoin Diamond began. This project was headed by 3 developers, about whom users know nothing except their nicknames. And then only two of them, since the third wished to remain confidential. The developers wanted to improve Bitcoin and expand its capabilities so that the cryptocurrency would become even more popular and could be widely used by consumers.
That same fall, on November 25, 2017, the same OKEx crypto exchange began trading using this newly created digital currency. In parallel with these events, on the AEX trading platform on the same days, the price of BCD increased to 0.014 BTC (which was approximately $110 at that time). Towards the end of 2022, the most important thing happened - the main network was updated. In 2022, BCD Pay opened, an international trading platform. Here, all services and products could be bought and sold with Bitcoin or BCD. At the same time, an application of the same name was launched, which allows you to make personal transfers, online purchases, and subscribe to newsletters.
BCD roadmap that was created by the developers:
- second quarter of 2022 - the use of improved encryption algorithms, which should help eliminate privacy issues in the process of transactions with Bitcoin;
- first quarter of 2022 – release of the application “BCD-ecology” of our own development;
- first quarter of 2022 – according to analysts’ forecasts, Bitcoin Diamond will surpass classic Bitcoin in all respects.
There was no more accurate data regarding the prospects of this crypto coin. In addition, nothing was known about the time of final completion of work on Bitcoin Diamond.
Comparison of Bitcoin Diamond with all other forks of the Bitcoin network
Benefits of BCD
- Encrypt amounts and balances to protect customer privacy.
- Block size is 8 MB.
- Sufficient capacity for all transactions.
- The speed of block creation has been increased fivefold.
- Increased transaction confirmation speed.
- Reduced transaction fees.
Bitcoin Diamond is the result of collaboration between three anonymous developers who came together and formed a foundation with a sonorous name - “Bitcoin Diamond Foundation”. Like Bitcoin Cash, the new “diamond” team intends to solve the problem of Bitcoin scalability, also seeking to increase the block size to 8 MB.
According to the cryptocurrency website, “the speed of block creation will increase by 5 times, and the ultimate goal is to improve the transaction confirmation speed of the entire Bitcoin blockchain.”
Mining Bitcoin Diamond
You can mine BCD using a full node or through a pool. The project's home page lists some public mining pools that will work with Bitcoin Diamond.
Mining will be carried out using the optimized X13 algorithm, and the new fork will be mined using GPU video cards.
Mining
The developers abandoned the SHA-256 encryption method, considering it obsolete. It was replaced by the X13 algorithm, which is characterized by 13-step verification.
The main disadvantage of SHA-256 is that it requires mining on ASIC devices. Since this is very expensive equipment, few can afford it. As a result, the lion’s share of hashrate is concentrated in several pools and the centralization of the network. The X13 algorithm is an excellent alternative to SHA-256. It is resistant to these devices and allows you to mine coins on video cards with the appropriate level of difficulty.
You can use one video card on your PC or assemble a farm. Nvidia video cards are best suited for BCD mining. AMD is also suitable, but in this case the profit will be less.
To start mining coins, you need to install a wallet or register on the exchange using internal storage. This is where the mined tokens will arrive.
After installing the wallet, download one of the suggested miners:
https://bytwork.com/soft/cryptodredge
https://bytwork.com/soft/skachat-wildrig-multi-i-nastroit-batniki-poshagovoe-rukovodstvo
Then select the pool for BCD:
https://www.zpool.ca/
https://www.ahashpool.com/
https://icemining.ca/
https://www.gos.cx/
Now all that remains is to configure the Bat file for the selected pool and you can start mining.
By the way, to calculate the expected profit, use special profitability calculators, for example, https://in-trend.biz/mayning/bitcoin-diamond/. To calculate efficiency, you need to indicate the hashrate and energy consumption of the equipment, the cost of electricity and the pool commission.
How can I get Bitcoin Diamond?
- Whoever held Bitcoin (BTC) at the time of the creation of Bitcoin Diamond (November 24) became the owner of it, at a ratio of 10 BCD to 1 BTC.
- Mining on the BCD network.
- Purchasing on cryptocurrency exchanges.
- Developers of the BCD ecosystem will also receive rewards.
How to get BCD for free using a private key from BTC?
Once the Bitcoin blockchain reaches block 495866, Bitcoin holders can receive BCD for free using the private keys from their BTC wallets.
If you have BTC in a paper wallet, hardware wallet or any other form of private key storage - Electrum, Jaxx, Exodus wallets. You will be able to receive the appropriate amount of BCD at any time.
How to find out your private key from a Bitcoin wallet to receive BCD?
The process is similar for most wallets, so we’ll look at it briefly for the most popular ones - EXODUS, Jaxx and Electrum.
EXODUS
In the EXODUS wallet, in order to gain access to private keys, you must first call the main menu, this is done by pressing the key combination Ctrl+Shift+D , in the menu select: Exodus > Developer > Acets > Bitcoin > Export Private keys
The program will tell us that the private key is saved on the desktop:
Open the created file using a regular text editor. There will be 2 codes: a short code - your wallet address, a long code - your private key.
Jaxx
In the Jaxx multi-currency wallet, the required menu is immediately available; to obtain private keys, simply follow the path:
Menu -> Tools -> Display Private Keys
Please note Jaxx automatically changes wallet addresses after transactions and thus each wallet will have a separate private and public key, all of them displayed on one page.
Electrum
Private keys in the Electrum wallet are available in the tab:
Wallet -> Private Keys -> Export
Which exchanges support Bitcoin Diamond trading?
BCD is traded on 33 exchanges worldwide, including Binance, OKEX, Huobi.Pro and BitZ. EXX.com also announced Bitcoin Diamond futures trading. Additionally, the Bitcoin Diamond Foundation claims that BCD will be supported by at least six wallets, including BitGo, Bitpie, Coldlar and ATOKEN.
Cryptocurrency exchanges supporting Bitcoin Diamond:
How to get free BCDs for your BTC balance on the exchange?
Cryptocurrency exchanges control your private keys. When a Bitcoin Diamond fork occurs, any exchange that holds BTC on your behalf will also receive a corresponding amount of BCD. Although they must add BCD to the account, there is no legal guarantee that would force them to do so.
Above we published the names and logos of exchanges that promised to add BCD in a ratio of 1:10. There is no official information on other exchanges yet, follow the news on our website.
Where can I buy?
| # | Exchange overview | Pair |
| 1 | Gate.io | BCD/USDT |
| 2 | Binance | BCD/BTC |
| 3 | Exrates | BCD/BTC |
| 4 | Bithumb | BCD/KRW |
| 5 | Exrates | BCD/USD |
| 6 | Indodax | BCD/IDR |
| 7 | OKEx | BCD/BTC |
| 8 | OKEx | BCD/USDT |
| 9 | Binance | BCD/ETH |
| 10 | Huobi | BCD/BTC |
| 11 | HitBTC | BCD/BTC |
| 12 | Gate.io | BCD/BTC |
| 13 | Kucoin | BCD/BTC |
| 14 | Kucoin | BCD/ETH |
| 15 | CREX24 | BCD/BTC |
| 16 | HitBTC | BCD/USDT |
| 17 | YoBit | BCD/BTC |
| 18 | Coinnest | BCD/KRW |
| 19 | BigONE | BCD/BTC |
| 20 | BtcTrade.im | BCD/BTC |
| 21 | CoinBene | BCD/USDT |
Bitcoin Diamond Development Team
The website lists three faceless avatars of the authors behind the cryptocurrency fork. Avatars are marked with the nicknames “EVEY” “007” “?”. There is no other information on the website about who is behind the hard fork.
Some believe that EVEY and 007 are unknown mining teams in China, and these groups (or individuals, it is not yet clear) are solely responsible for the fork. Another Qukuaiwang website states that Evey and 007 are "overseas" mining groups.
If Evey and 007 are indeed groups of miners and not individuals, this could explain the use of faceless avatars.
Official warning from developers
The developers accompany the hard fork with a warning: “Bitcoin Diamond Organization cannot take responsibility for third-party services such as exchanges, wallets, websites and pools. All links provided on our site are posted by community members and third parties. By clicking on any of these links, you agree to the risks of using third-party resources and accept responsibility for any loss, damage or other troubles caused by the use of these resources."
Bitcoin Diamond developers are adopting an updated proof-of-work algorithm, which they say is more efficient. The team also states that the coin will be even more anonymous than Bitcoin itself. For example, transaction amounts and balance displays in Bitcoin Diamond will be encrypted.
“Diamond Bitcoin” does not yet have a page on GitHub, that is, you cannot study the code of this fork, although everyone knows that any cryptocurrency is a priori open source.
Of course, there may be no malicious intent involved, but a fork usually creates coins that are easily subject to price manipulation. However, if this is still not a sincere desire to make a better Bitcoin, we can assume that it works like this. Everyone who owns Bitcoin will receive an equivalent amount in BCD after the fork, and the value of the coin will be artificially increased immediately after its release (as is the case with Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold).
If BCD decides to follow in the footsteps of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, then holders of the new coin will begin to get rid of them on exchanges as soon as the opportunity arises, which will lead to a rapid decline in the BCD rate.
Token cost
The Bitcoin Diamond site team does not provide any investment advice and does not undertake to predict price movements. She developed the coin as a tool to reward Bitcoin owners. Anyone who owned BTC at the start of the project received a certain number of Bitcoin Diamond tokens. But whether to sell coins immediately or keep them for the long term is up to everyone to decide for themselves. As the recent colossal rise in the value of Bitcoin Cash shows, the latter option can be quite profitable.
