As Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency created, the oldest and most disruptive, its source code has been copied and modified for the development of other blockchain projects that, over time, have been emerging. This technically is not a bifurcation, since in the launching of these other networks no protocol of deliberation or consensus is made around the change of rules and creation of a new network from a more senior one.
In this sense, most of the projects that have come out publicly facing the blockchain ecosystem, have taken independent courses without trying to imitate Bitcoin. But another part has taken the name of Bitcoin and has modified it to denote that they are very close to the matrix blockchain, or that they are the legitimate vision or more similar to what is described in the white bitcoin paper, which despite being presented as a technical document and objective, is subjected to relative and debatable interpretations.
The most well-known contentious bifurcation is Bitcoin Cash (BCH) , the main blockchain platform among those that have had this origin. It is called contentious because it was a separation between a group of miners, developers and users who did not share the vision of the main group of developers, Bitcoin Core, about the scalability of this network.
This separation between two visions led to the creation of other bifurcations, some of which are listed in exchange houses and are part of recognized portfolios, such as the case of Bitcoin Gold (BTG) . However, others have not enjoyed the same popularity and acceptance in the markets that they see assets like Bitcoin Pizza and Bitcoin Diamond with disdain.
Many participants and investors of the market they consider these cryptocurrencies to be useless and unreliable, since they are often released to the public by anonymous developers and managers. In many of these projects it is not known who are the developers or entrepreneurs behind, so they only seem to want to get some quick money.
In addition, the number of bifurcations has increased surprisingly. Bloomberg It indicates that more than 100 Bitcoin forks could be made this year.
Some of the risks of these bifurcations lie in the security of their networks, because at the beginning the bifurcations are usually unstable and vulnerable to repetition attacks, so the mining of these platforms must be stable and have incentives to avoid inconveniences and process transactions. The limited willingness of some projects to perform enough tests to guarantee the security of the network increases the risk that these attacks will be more easily perpetrated.
It is very easy to create a Bitcoin fork or another cryptocurrency. On the Internet there are already services that help you to completely create a blockchain project based on slight modifications to the base code of another project and several programming languages, such as MultiChain , Amazon Web Services and IBM The difficulty lies in creating a safe and useful project for society.
In this special we will briefly mention several forked Bitcoin forks or that take their code to run their platform.
Bifurcations of the Bitcoin blockchain. Image by jguemez / pixabay.com
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Symbol: BCH
Forking date: August 1, 2017
Fork Block Height: 478559
Total Issuance: 21,000,000
Public issuance: 21,000,000
Preminated coins: 0
Mining Algorithm: SHA256
Mining hardware: ASIC
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is the most important bifurcated platform among the rivals of the original Bitcoin, having originated in the disagreements of the Bitcoin scalability debate. The project leaders claim that this cryptocurrency is the real Bitcoin because they seek to be a fast and low-cost payment method, something that Bitcoin could not fulfill for a while and is already solving. But some inconsistencies such as the mining of empty blocks of Bitcoin Cash, the presence as advisor of the project of Craig S. Wright , the fake Satoshi, and fraudulent marketing campaigns have undermined the trust of the project.
Oil Bitcoin (OBTC)
Symbol: OBTC
Bifurcation date: December 12, 2017
Fork Block Height: 498888
Total Issuance: 21,000,000
Public Offer: 21,000,000
Pre-rolled coins: 0
Mining Algorithm: Unknown
Mining Hardware: CPU
Bifurcation proposing to distribute the lost bitcoins to the block reward funds through the Participation Test mechanism. Since April they do not send messages in Twitter , as well as his group of Telegram He is not very moved either. his Web page It is offline.
Bitcoin Clashic (BCHC)
Symbol: BCHC
Forking date: August 1, 2017
Fork Block Height: 478558
Total currency issue: 0
Total public emission: 0
Pre-rolled coins: 0
Mining Algorithm: Unknown
Mining Hardware: Unknown
Project that argues to provide the true vision of Satoshi, in other words, a platform for decentralized p2p payments. This platform is in turn the "classic" version of Bitcoin Cash, which they argue does not offer the same characteristics of transparency and security, and which was bifurcated on December 13 leaving behind this network.
Bitcoin Pizza (BPA)
Symbol: BPA
Branch date: January 1, 2018
Height of the Branch block: 501888
Total currency issue: 0
Total public emission: 0
Pre-rolled coins: 0
Mining algorithm: Equihash
Mining Hardware: Unknown
This particular project incorporates the DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) technology, which is used by IOTA, reducing the average block time to 2 minutes. Your website is inactive and your GitHub code repository has only one taxpayer . It is listed in some portfolios or exchange houses such as HB.top, FuBT and CCCBTC.
Bitcoin Ore (BCO)
Symbol: BCO
Branch date: December 31, 2017
Height of the Branch Block: 501949
Total currency issue: 21,000,000
Total public issue: 21,000,000
Pre-rolled coins: 0
Mining Algorithm: Unknown
Consensus Mechanism: Capacity Test
Mining Hardware: Universal
This fork raises a blockchain platform similar to Bitcoin that has better performance and efficiency in the use of energy. So they will use the consensus mechanism of Capacity Test so that anyone can undermine the network, thereby adhering to what they cite as Satoshi's vision: decentralized mining.
Bitcoin Faith (BTF)
Symbol: BTF
Forking date: December 19, 2017
Bifurcation Block Height: 500000
Total currency issue: 21,000,000
Total public issue: 21,000,000
Pre-paid coins: 210,000
Mining Algorithm: Unknown
Consensus Mechanism: Unknown
Mining Hardware: Universal
This platform proposed to increase the size of the block to 8 MB and implement the zero knowledge test to increase the privacy of transactions, being developed by the company BitGo . They also hope to develop smart contracts in the platform to guarantee the issuance of various types of assets and the creation of other applications.
Super Bitcoin (SBTC)
Symbol: SBTC
Bifurcation date: December 12, 2017
Fork Block Height: 498,888
Total currency issue: 21,000,000
Total public issue: 21,210,000
Pre-paid coins: 210,000
Mining Algorithm: Unknown
Consensus Mechanism: Unknown
Mining Hardware: Unknown
Like Bitcoin Faith, Super Bitcoin aims to implement the zero knowledge tests to its processing algorithm for greater privacy and increase the size of the block to 8 MB, as well as allow the creation of intelligent contracts. It is currently listed in exchange houses such as Bitfinex, Huobi and HitBTC.
Bitcoin Gold (BTG)
Symbol: BTG
Bifurcation Date: October 10, 2017
Bifurcation Block: 491407 Total Issuance: 21,100,000 Total Public Issuance: 21,000,000
Preliminary: 100,000 Algorithm: Equihash Mining equipment: GPU
This may be one of Bitcoin's most popular forked platforms after Bitcoin Cash, although it has not been without problems. They say, the purpose of Bitcoin Gold is to provide greater decentralization in mining, returning to Satoshi's vision that indicated the distribution 1 CPU-1 Vote. For that, they are willing to change the working test algorithm SHA256 by the Equihash algorithm, after which at the beginning of June suffer 51% attacks.
Bitcoin is still the safest blockchain. Image by MichaelWuensch / pixabay.com
In spite of the possibilities allowed by the open nature of distributed accounting technology, these Bitcoin bifurcations only remain as imitations or projects that present in their development greater problems than they seem to solve. In turn, other projects also boast the same qualities of these without necessarily being direct bifurcations of Bitcoin or without using its name.
Also, do not take into account that Bitcoin is currently the most safe , the largest in capitalization and with greater processing and mining power, so even for other long-term projects and with community support, it is difficult to move, which leads to think that these projects are prone to only raise money easy for a short time of life.
So there are arguments against whether these projects are bifurcations in reality, since the mechanism of distribution of these chips is the airdrop , a technique that allocates a number of cryptocurrencies to those already possessing bitcoin in order to attract new participants to their network, which is why these projects are designated as simply copies of Bitcoin launched independently.
These platforms are prone to fail despite trying to usurp the name, functions and performance of Bitcoin; the market is inclined to use the original network for the loyalty and trust generated throughout these almost 10 years of existence.
The list of Bitcoin bifurcations made is organized by the web Forks.net , where these and more platforms can be found for more details.
Featured image by sommersby / stock.adobe.com