INTRODUCTION
In the past few days and weeks Bitcoin has been the hottest topic. Many have no idea what they are buying and why it has value. I am an advocate of blockchain and the financial freedom of cryptocurrencies so for me personally any news is good news. With solid technologies launching such as identity protection through coins like 'Civic' - this truly is the future moving forward. Please note Bitcoin Silver was a joke and I hope we do not see anymore forks - I will cover the upcoming Bitcoin Gold fork. I would really like to see less forking and just bitcoin rocket off.
It is never too late to 'dip your feet in' with a small amount, but invest at your own risk and based on your own research. People will time and time again misguide you and try to either steal your money or deceive you. However there are some great investment opportunities out there. This is coming from the guy who missed Ethereum at $13 thinking it would go back to $8 about a year or so ago... Current Ethereum prices are > $300.
I want to help the community grow and become more educated so I like to keep things simple and no question is a 'stupid question'. Feel free to join my Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/253342165192623/
(I have covered this in a prior post: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@banglasteve/how-to-buy-cryptocurrency-in-australia)
WHY DO WE KEEP FORKING?
The reason comes back to the origin of Bitcoin:
- Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a whitepaper outlining the framework for Bitcoin
- No-one knows who this person is and he has never been seen 2011
- There is a development team and a mining community who have different interpretations of 'Satoshi's vision'
- Based on the interpretations one community will take the code and generally split away as we saw with 'Bitcoin Cash' - Greater block sizes and improved scalability
- The two upcoming forks based on differing community view is 'BTG (Bitcoin Gold)' and 'Segwit 2X Bitcoin (BTC 2) - I am not sure if it has an official name yet' and will post about this fork later as we get closer to it
BITCOIN GOLD (BTG)?
- Jack Liao is leading this with his community
- Changing of the proof of work (aka mining) to Equihash
- Equihash? Basically to give mining back to users with CPU's and GPU's
- Bitcoin is expensive to mine and there is a slight monopoly for miners in terms of cheap electricity with powerful computing hardware
- On the 25th of October 2017 the hardfork is expected to occur
- What really reduces the appeal of this coin and team is the lack of transparency
- A lot of exchanges and people are not commenting on this hardfork as not a lot of information has been made available
If you would like to mine BTG then it is understandable why you would advocate this fork and I quite like the strong replay protection proposed. However this has no way near the level of support that Bitcoin Cash had. There have been claims that the snapshot has already occurred and some comments against this coin - check links below.
Links:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7551nd/bitcoin_gold_fork_had_happened_a_week_ago_and_the/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/757jf4/here_is_why_bitcoingold_is_shady_and_a_scam_you/
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
At this stage it seems like everyone is buying bitcoin. I do expect a breather and pullback but it is unclear about when this will occur. It might be after the 25th of October BTG hardfork, or after the Segwit 2X hardfork in November. The long term trend if you are an 'investor' is generally upwards and towards the mental price target of $10,000 - having said that let's clear $6,000 first. Please note there is significant risk and volatility in markets and you have to ask yourself if you can handle losses.
If there are any topics you would like me to cover or explain in further depth or how I can improve this post - feel free to leave me a comment. Thanks for reading guys. Also thought I would post this just for kicks - no post about bitcoin is complete without a mention of a lambo.
DISCLAIMER: Please note I am not a financial advisor and none of this should be taken as financial advice as they are my opinions and always do your own research as you should only be investing with money you can afford to lose.
Donations:
BTC - 1M5anDbT4HAuA6XkJekbMfSTFR1ippEkch
ETH - 0xC1f258BeD748F03130edc6D3A07320C882eD8862
LTC -LWx8U7j5Y4vo8jq8CpqWKwWMXKrByaNW6s