The number of Bitcoin hard forks is quite astonishing, assuming one takes all the lesser-known coins into consideration. Bitcoin Cash is the only hard fork to stand on its own right now, though it remains to be seen if the same will apply to SegWit2x moving forward. Things are a lot less clear when it comes to Bitcoin Gold, as there is a lot of uncertainty as to when this fork takes place, to begin with.
Bitcoin Gold Raises More Questions Than Answers
A lot of people aren’t taking Bitcoin Gold seriously right now, which is not entirely surprising. This hard fork aims to provide another free coin to Bitcoin holders, even though the way it is going about things may leave a lot to be desired in the end. For one thing, we know that a lot of these coins are premined; otherwise, they couldn’t be distributed to Bitcoin holders accordingly.
However, the bigger question is when these coins are to be premined in the first place. Originally, the Bitcoin Gold site mentioned the date of October 25th, which would mean the fork would occur about two weeks from now. Other accounts operated by the same team, however, indicate that the fork takes place on block 478,558. If that were the official issuance date, the coins were premined about 10,000 blocks ago.
It is evident this discrepancy is causing a lot of confusion, to say the least. Bitcoin Gold is a currency which seemingly offers nothing spectacular or innovative right now, even though there will be initial interest in this concept simply because people will make some free money from it. It remains to be seen if and when users will actually get their BTG tokens, though, and if so, how much of the premine will be issued to users in the process.
One month until #bgold exodus fork.
Hodl BTC on 10.25 get free BTG on 11.1#bgold1025 #blockchainQE #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ORgjvTZK8m
— Bitcoin Gold (@btcgpu) September 25, 2017
On Reddit, there are a lot of conflicting reports on Bitcoin Gold as well. Bitcoin Gold takes the concept of forking Bitcoin for political reasons to a whole new level, albeit not in a positive manner whatsoever. With so many coins being premined by the developer, there is a legitimate chance the BTG supply will be dumped onto exchanges, assuming this token ever gets on an exchange to begin with.
The lack of verifiable information surrounding Bitcoin Gold – or Bitcoin GPU, depending on what people want to call it – makes this project look amateurish at best. A lot of information has been removed from the website, which only adds more confusion to the mix. Although Bitcoin users gladly welcome airdrops as a way to get some additional money, Bitcoin Gold is not necessarily on a lot of people’s lists right now.
For the time being, it remains to be seen what will happen with Bitcoin Gold moving forward. October 25th – assuming that is the correct date – will be an important date to keep an eye on, as we will either see BTG succeed or get dumped to the ground in a matter of hours. It is unclear if any exchange will support this useless hard fork, though, as that does not appear to be the case right now. It’s an interesting situation to keep an eye on, though; that much is certain.
