Cryptocurrency Bitcoin Gold / BTG: online course, calculator and hardware for Bitcoin fork

What is Bitcoin Gold

Bitcoin Gold is the brainchild of Jack Liao (CEO of Hong Kong-based mining hardware manufacturer LightningAsic) and is being launched as a hard fork. BTG's goal is to become a better "gold" than Bitcoin. The main way they decided to do this was to try to change the centralization of miners using PoW. Replacing PoW usually requires a hard fork, and BTG decided to go this route. The proof of work they chose is Equihash, an algorithm that does not favor ASICs and is also used by ZCash. The idea is to allow mining for users who can start using their processors and graphics cards.

Bitcoin Gold is a protest against the growing power and centralization of miners. Large farms continue to use increasingly powerful specialized computers - ASICs - to mine bitcoins. These ASICs are extremely expensive and benefit greatly, resulting in greater network centralization. Currently, a few pools of miners control the majority of Bitcoin's power.

BTG developers will take home a reward of up to 1%. How this will be accomplished is unclear, but it will likely take a portion of the block mining reward as they intend to keep the coins at the 21 million limit. This causes a flurry of criticism, because the exact number of mined blocks will be unknown (the new blockchain will work on a closed test network).

Jack Liao's financial partner is known simply as Wubi, a Chinese mining magnate and owner of Chinese news portal Jinse.com. The anonymous lead developer of the project goes by the name H4x3rotab, and some other developers and contributors can be found on GitHub and Slack.

Described by the team as a "friendly fork", many things about this copy make it less like BTCC and more like a free app to Bitcoin. H4x3rotab explained that there are "interested investors" who benefit from blocking upcoming Bitcoin upgrades by doing hard forks such as C-cash, D-cash or SegWit4x and SegWit8x.

As with Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin holders will also have the same number of BTG coins as of October 25th. Owners can do nothing and keep the new coins, or sell them and potentially increase their capital (provided the new coin is worth something).

BTG will be an altcoin. Gold Bitcoin will also include replay protection, and since virtually no miners will leave the Bitcoin network, it will not threaten the main network in any way. There is no chance that Bitcion Gold will “hijack” or “kill” the Bitcoin main chain.

Two exchanges have confirmed they will accept BTG in November: Hong Kong's Bitexchange and new CFD exchange Bitstar.

A little about ASIC and Equihash

Currently, Bitcoin mining is completely dominated by ASICs, mainly from Bitmain, Bitfury and Canaan. The health check function (SHA256) is quite simple and does not require a lot of RAM. Equihash, on the other hand, is a fairly complex hashing function and requires a lot of RAM to execute. This means that ASICs for Equihash will cost a lot more to produce and there won't be as much speed improvement.

To give you an idea, a typical processor can use SHA256 at about 5-10 MB/s. The ASIC can handle SHA256 at about 5-10 TB/s, or about 1 million times faster.

Thus, BTG will compete with Ethereum for hardware, despite being closer to Zcash. This is notable because the Ethereum project plans to switch the Proof of Work algorithm to Proof of Stake around 2022. Ethereum currently uses a large percentage of the world's GPUs, so the Bitcoin Gold team designed their coin to be a successor to this mining hardware.

If you are involved in mining or are interested in this topic, you can read our guide about BTG mining.

Cryptocurrency Bitcoin Gold – what is this coin famous for?

Bitcoin gold is a cryptocurrency that was formed due to a hard fork of the BTC network.
Hong Kong entrepreneur Jack Liao, who is the head of LightningAsic, contributed to this offshoot. The developer set a goal for the project to replace the original bitcoin and turn the new coin into the main digital gold. The key principle that the creators of the platform adhere to is the achievement of decentralized mining. The first block in the BTG network was mined on October 24, 2022, the official start took place the next day. The platform's blockchain began with Bitcoin block 491,407. In fact, mining was launched in mid-November, although it was planned to start in the early days. The delay is due to massive hacker attacks on the servers.

At the premine stage, 8 thousand blocks were created with a reward for each of them of 12.5 BTG. 95% of these funds were allocated to the project development fund, and the rest was divided among 6 developers. At the initial stages, the project seemed crude, and users faced a number of problems:

• difficulties with synchronization;
• initially 95% of the blockchain power belonged to the btgpool.pro pool, which did not exclude a 51% attack;
• funds were stolen through the wallet of a third-party developer posted on the BTG website.

Despite all this, after the launch, miners, traders and investors from all over the world showed interest in bitcoin gold. Proper development of the project in the future can turn the coin into an improved analogue of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin gold price forecast for 2022. Expert opinion.

Bitcoin reset or fork?

Although Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold are technically forks, they do not affect the network in any way. They simply use (mostly) the Bitcoin code and distribute their currency proportionally to all BTC holders.

Given that the term "fork" is usually associated with an attempt to upgrade a network, using the word to describe this case can be confusing for newbies. It's best to compare it to "dumping coins."

An airdrop, or reset, is a means of distributing the initial supply of coins when an altcoin is created. Byteball is a great example; users link their Byteball address to their Bitcoin wallet address, and at a certain time receive several Byteball tokens proportional to BTC.

Technological features of Bitcoin Gold

Bitcoin Gold became the next fork of Bitcoin after BCH. The developers switched the new network from SHA-256 to the Equihash algorithm, which is more resistant to ASIC mining. It is demanding on RAM and is better adapted to work with GPU graphics cards. The algorithm is quite common; for example, the zcash cryptocurrency works with it. Benefits of Equihash for mining users include:

• decentralized mining of Bitcoin gold;
• inefficiency of mining using ASIC;
• less exposure to large pools;
• scalability by adding network nodes.

The BTG development team is confident that the decentralization of their network will help reduce the influence of the largest market players on the release of new assets. The head of the project, Jack Liao, is confident that giants like Bitmain with AntPool have a critical influence on the market, and this threatens the decentralization of mining that Satoshi Nakamoto, who created BTC, sought

In the Bitcoin Gold network, the number of issued coins is limited to 21 million pieces. It takes about 10 minutes to generate each block, and after each link in the blockchain the difficulty of mining increases.

You can read more detailed information about Bitcoin Gold in our encyclopedia.

BTG cryptocurrency: where to store it

To store Bitcoin Gold, like other cryptocurrencies, special digital wallets are required. They come in several types:

• Browser. This is the easiest way. It is enough to register on the service, after which you will have the opportunity to accept and transfer cryptocurrency from your personal wallet.
• Desktop. You need to download and install a special program on your computer. These are usually official coin wallets that do not support other cryptocurrencies. At the same time, they are considered one of the most reliable ways to store digital assets.
• Mobile. Special applications for mobile devices. Installed in the memory of a smartphone or tablet. They often support working with different coins.
• Hardware. Special digital devices (outwardly resembling a regular flash drive). The most reliable and convenient way to store cryptocurrencies.

The official website contains a list of wallets, the use of which is recommended by the development team.

How and where to buy Bitcoin Gold cryptocurrency?

There are 2 options for purchasing BTG:

1. Purchase on the exchange for cryptocurrency or fiat.
2. Exchange for fiat money through web conversion platforms.

Let's figure out what are the features of purchasing Bitcoin Gold.

Exchanges trading Bitcoin Gold

Quotes of the BTG\USD currency pair
On the screenshot are quotes of the BTG\USD currency pair. At the time of writing, the asset is accepted by all major exchanges except CoinBase.

The first exchange where the currency appeared within 24 hours after the public release was HitBTC.

The asset is also traded on other exchanges:

• BitBay, AbuCoin, Change Now;
• Gate.io., Uphold, Changelly;
• Shapeshift, Evercoin, Tdax;
• Cex.io, Bitsane, Bitstarex;
• QuadrigaCX

And so on, a total of 59 trading platforms. At least the BTG\BTC currency pair is represented everywhere.

The following exchanges are planning to join these exchanges in the near future:

• Paribu, Coinnest, BleuTrade;
• BitStar, Bithumb, Bitmarket;
• BitFlayer, KKEX;
• BitBay, Beatcoin.

The only major exchange that did not accept Bitcoin Gold for exchange and commented on this issue was CoinBase.

Exchangers for withdrawal

Direct exchange for fiat currency can be made on exchanges, and withdrawal of Bitcoin Gold is done through exchangers that accept Bitcoin. Here are the most reliable:

• 24paybank.com;
• 60cek.com;
• x-pay.cc.

In total, there are more than 100 operating exchange points, the Bitcoin Gold rate may vary depending on the web platform. There are services that operate around the clock.

Advantages and disadvantages

An undoubted advantage is the innovative element of Bitcoin Gold - a new algorithm called Equihash, thanks to which mining can be done exclusively on GPUs (video cards of home PCs).

The cryptocurrency has an increased degree of security; the algorithm allows ordinary users to have access to mining pools. Thus, not only professionals, but also users with low-power personal computers can mine.

The BTG network features improved and refined code, resulting in improved overall performance.

Despite all the above advantages, many investors note poor duplication protection. For this reason, various services confuse Bitcoin Gold with Bitcoin, and as a result prohibit some transactions.

A lot of controversy in the cryptocurrency community was caused by the developers’ decision to carry out pre-mining. According to the project administration, this was necessary to provide the system with finances for the first time after launch. How many coins the developers obtained through this procedure remains unknown.

Creators of the hard fork

The founder of the Bitcoin Gold cryptocurrency is Hong Kong businessman Jack Liao. Interestingly, he owns the company LightningAsic, which sells equipment for Bitcoin mining.

It is unknown who serves as the lead developer. He is hidden under the nickname h4x3rotab. Robert Kuhne is responsible for developing the strategy. Also on the development team are organizer Alejandro Reggio, advisor Martin Kuvandzhiev and designer Franco Niebles.