Just a few days ahead of the scheduled hard fork, Bitcoin Gold has finally received an updated website. On the surface, it looks a lot more professional, even though the use cases for this altcoin remain unclear. Additionally, there is no indication as to who will support BTG in the first place. Now is a good time to go over some of the specifics on Bitcoin Gold as outlined by its team.
Bitcoin Gold Updates Don’t Clarify Much
As most people would have expected, the information found on the updated Bitcoin Gold website still does not explain all that much. In fact, it does little more than confirm most of the information people have cobbled together to this point. It uses a new proof-of-work algorithm known as Equihash, and the goal is to issue a total of 21 million BTG when everything’s said and done.
What is rather interesting is how there will be a difficulty adjustment for every block. This is quite different from Bitcoin or any of the other existing or upcoming hard forks. More specifically, Bitcoin’s difficulty adjusts every two weeks, as will the SegWit2x fork. Bitcoin Cash has an EDA which makes things pretty interesting, although it doesn’t attribute a lot of value to the currency itself for the time being. It will be interesting to see whether miners try to game the BTG algorithm in this regard.
Additionally, it seems Bitcoin Gold developers have finally implemented proper replay protection. They are still ahead of SegWit2x in this regard, as that particular chain still has no replay protection whatsoever. Then again, it remains to be seen if people will even be interested in Bitcoin Gold, considering there are no mining pools or exchanges supporting this airdrop right now. That situation will not change overnight either, but there are still eight days to go before the hard fork occurs.
On the new website, there is mention of how users can obtain Bitcoin Gold. Unsurprisingly, the information doesn’t help anyone by any means. We know there will be a rate of 1:1 relative to BTC held in user wallets at the time of the fork. However, there is no information as to how users can actually obtain or claim their balances in this regard. The team is allegedly working on guides to retrieving BTG from Electrum, Mycelium, and hardware wallets, though.
Moreover, we now have a clear understanding of which people are on the Bitcoin Gold team. None of the names are out of the ordinary in this regard, as it seems most of them are unknown individuals who simply claim they can create a better Bitcoin. While Jack Liao is the CEO of LightningAsic, that doesn’t necessarily mean this currency can be trusted either. For now, it seems to be more of a money grab than anything else, especially given the lack of support by service providers and wallets.
In the end, it remains to be seen how things will play out for Bitcoin Gold. No one has high hopes for this project right now, which is only understandable. Based on the current information, there will be a major BTG premine and no way to effectively distribute the coins. There isn’t even an official Bitcoin Gold wallet, for crying out loud. This project does not instill any confidence whatsoever; that much is rather evident.
