Your Guide to Upcoming Bitcoin Forks
December 2017 – January 2018 (and Beyond)
The following Bitcoin forks have been announced (although not every one is confirmed as legit). They are Super Bitcoin, Bitcoin Platinum, Bitcoin Cash Plus, Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Uranium, and Bitcoin God.[1]
We will update the list as more occur, for now this is your guide to Bitcoin forks from December 2017 – January 2018.
To be clear, this is not a joke (and further that does say “God” and not “Gold,” there are no typos above).
These Bitcoin forks could end up not being real, but as far as we know at this point, they are real [see notes below for specifics on each coin, so far Bitcoin Platinum is rumored to be fake].
In other words, over the next month or so (December – January) there will potentially be as many as six Bitcoin forks. That means Bitcoin holders could get “free coins” six times (or if all turn out to be fake, zero times).
Each fork occurs at a block number (AKA block height). Thus, below we will list the forks and their block number alongside a short description, an approximate date when we have one, and the “official” URL (the URL of the coin or the closest thing we could find when that wasn’t an option).
Without further ado the following Bitcoin forks are planned for 2017 -2018 (we will add more forks as they are announced and notes as the forks occur):
BitcoinX (BCX): A smart contract (like Ethereum) based Bitcoin. Block 498888. https://bcx.org/. NOTE: Snapshot already occurred; futures are trading, no coin has been released yet.
Super Bitcoin (SBTC): Like BitcoinX, a smart contract based Bitcoin. Block 498888. http://www.supersmartbitcoin.com/index.html. NOTE: Snapshot already occurred; futures are trading, no coin has been released yet.
Bitcoin Platinum (BTP): According to the site, “Satoshi’s original vision of Decentralized Electronic Cash.” Around December 12th. Blocks 497757 / 498533. https://bitcoinplatinum.github.io/ko.html TIP: Bitcoin Platinum is rumored to be fake see: Bitcoin Platinum Created By South Korean Teenager As a Scam, Local Market Erupts.
Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC): A fork that is meant to provide “lightening fast payments.” Uses smart contracts and can host decentralized apps like Ethereum (and Super Bitcoin). Around December 23rd. Block 499,999. http://lightningbitcoin.io/
Bitcoin Cash Plus (BCP): According to the site, “fulfilling the original promise of Bitcoin.” Around January 2nd, 2018. Block 501407. http://www.bitcoincashplus.org/
Bitcoin Silver (BTCS): According to a BitcoinTalk forum, the coin aims to “Make Bitcoin Decentralized Again.” Apparently it occurs “in December.” The site was up, but now its down. That doesn’t bode well. https://bitcoinsilver.io/ – so see bitcointalk.org instead – https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2311582.0.
Bitcoin Uranium (BUM): According to a BitcoinTalk forum, the coin aims to “Make Bitcoin Great Again.” Apparently it occurs “in December.” https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2316506
Bitcoin God: No premining, it’s apparently a Christmas Present from Chinese Angel Investor Chandler Guo. Occurs Dec. 25. https://cointelegraph.com/news/forgive-me-father-for-i-have-forked-investor-to-release-bitcoin-god.
Bitcoin Atom (BCA): Bitcoin Atom is a SegWit enabled Bitcoin fork with atomic swaps, hybrid consensus, and lightning network. Exact fork block/date TBA. See: https://bitcoinatom.io/.
TIP: See block explorer for the current block height to get an idea when a given fork will occur.
To summarize the above and connect some dots, Super Bitcoin and BitcoinX are Ethereum competitors of sorts (as they use smart contracts like the Ethereum network), Bitcoin Platinum and Bitcoin Cash Plus are both essentially Bitcoin Cash competitors (competitors for Bitcoin as a currency), Lightening Bitcoin is like a mix of Super Bitcoin / BitcoinX and Bitcoin Platinum / Bitcoin Cash Plus (as it is both meant to be competitive as a currency and it uses smart contracts), and Bitcoin Silver and Bitcoin Uranium are both Bitcoin Gold competitors (competitors for Bitcoin as a value store that is profitable to mine), and lastly Bitcoin God is a Christmas present from Chandler Guo (simply meant to reward people for holding Bitcoin).
This all may seem crazy, but if you think of these like user activated dividends, it starts making a little bit more sense.
To ensure you get your coins from the above Bitcoin forks for the Bitcoin you are holding: Make sure to be in a Bitcoin wallet that supports the forks (Coinomi has been good about this), an exchange like Binance with a good record of supporting forks (Binance has supported Bitcoin Cash, Gold, Segwit2x, Diamond, and Super Bitcoin and has offered futures on or around the snapshot date for each as far as I recall; meanwhile as a user pointed out hitbtc has been good about supporting forks, Super Bitcoin futures were tradable on hitbtc immediately after the fork for example), or otherwise be in control of your private keys when the forks occur (for example in a wallet like Bitcoin Core)!
With that said, unless you have futures on an exchange that lets you trade them, you’ll have to wait until the forked chain goes live to collect and trade your forked coins.
TIP: If you didn’t catch it, most of those forks have rather absurd tag lines like “make Bitcoin great again.” Now, with that said, Bitcoin Gold had such a tagline and ended up being real. Thus, be skeptical, but be prepared in case some of these do end up being actual forks.
More than just the forks: Bitcoin United is another potential Bitcoin product (of sorts). It isn’t clear if this project is a fork or is an attempt to create another coin. It seems to have two associated URLs http://united-bitcoin.com/ and http://www.ub.com/ (this however is not the same as https://unitedbitcoin.net/). It is unclear which if any is “the official link.” The problem with this project is that it has been in the works for a while, and it hasn’t become any clearer if it is legit or not. See an article from July: What Is Bitcoin United and Should You Trust It? Not much has changed since July.
NOTE: “Being in Bitcoin for a given fork” is sensible. You should not however try to claim or buy any of the above coins without confirmation from some major wallets or exchanges that the coin is live and stable. There is very likely to be people out there creating fake wallets, directions, buying opportunities, etc.
Shared from cryptocurrencyfacts.com