The Bitcoin Gold developers are preparing the cryptocurrency’s network for its official launch.
As CCN has reported, bitcoin gold (BTG) is an altcoin that will be created through a fork of the main bitcoin blockchain. Consequently, like bitcoin cash, it will have a shared blockchain history with bitcoin up until the fork. That split took place on October 24, when the bitcoin gold developers took a blockchain “snapshot” of the bitcoin network, meaning that everyone who held bitcoin balances at that time will receive an equal number of bitcoin gold coins.
However, the Bitcoin Gold network had yet to launch in the intervening weeks, as the developers were continuing to tinker with the source code by implementing replay protection, as well as a new consensus algorithm that will supposedly resist the use of specialized computer chips for mining. The developers were also premining approximately 100,000 coins, which they claim will be used to help fund the growth and development of the bitcoin gold ecosystem.
That process nearing completion, developers say the official network will launch on November 12 at 19:00 UTC. In response to the announcement, the price of bitcoin gold futures rose 31%, from $140 to $185.
However, it remains to be seen whether this latest bitcoin fork will amass enough support from users, miners, and services to remain viable over the long-term. Bitcoin cash has managed to assemble this infrastructure, but some analysts believe investors and traders will experience “fork fatigue” as subsequent altcoins fork away from the main blockchain.
Others fear that these forks, by retaining the bitcoin moniker, will make the ecosystem even more confusing for new users than it already is and could discredit the claim that bitcoin is truly a scarce commodity.
“These forks are very bad for bitcoin,” concluded Sol Lederer, blockchain director at tech startup Loomia. “Saturating the market with different versions of bitcoin is confusing to users, and discredits the claim that there are a limited number of bitcoins – since you can always fork it and double the supply.”