After the hard fork on August 1 that produced Bitcoin Cash, many bitcoiners have been waiting for the possibility of a fork taking place this November with the Segwit2x plan. However, a lot of bitcoin proponents don’t know about another fork called “Bitcoin Gold” (BTG) that’s scheduled to take place on October 25th.
Also read: Japan’s Financial Authority to Begin Bitcoin Exchange Surveillance Next Month
Bitcoin Gold Plans to Fork Bitcoin and Change the Consensus Mechanism
Yes, you read that correctly bitcoin enthusiasts might see another hard fork this October that produces another token called Bitcoin Gold. The project first announced on Bitcointalk.org in July was created by Jack Liao, the founder of Lightning ASIC a mining firm based out of Hong Kong and an anonymous developer named “h4x3.” The forked protocol aims to change bitcoin’s consensus algorithm allowing users to mine the currency with graphic processing units (GPU) among other changes. According to the development team, Bitcoin Gold will use the Equihash algorithm used by the altcoin Zcash rather than bitcoin’s original SHA256.
“Bitcoin Gold implements the UAHF (User Activated Hard Fork) proposal to accept GPU mining,” explains the website archive. “Miners can choose the size of the blocks they want to mine, with a default of 1 MB. It includes replay and wipeout protection.”
For too long, Bitcoin has been held back by the centralized mining industry. GPU brings Bitcoin into the modern age with an exciting technological roadmap to enable massive on-chain scaling well into the future with decentralization.
Most Bitcoin Proponents Unaware of this Project
Even though it was announced back in July the news of the Bitcoin Gold fork is just starting to come around people’s radar. Some believe the announcement and the project’s website is a “troll attempt” to create confusion and dilute the power of the Bitcoin Cash fork and Segwit2x. The Bitcoin Gold protocol has available code on Github for review and has multiple social media accounts for Twitter, Facebook, and a Slack channel. Currently, there are over 250 members in the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel, and many of the visitors seem excited about the new fork. Even though the user-activated hard fork will take place on October 25 the full network launch is scheduled for November 1.
Evil ASIC Manufacturers
There is a lot of discussion happening on the team’s Slack channel and it seems the team has a lot of work to do if BTG developers hope to fork on October 25. For instance, at the moment there is no testnet for miners to test the protocol, reveals the BTG lead developer. “We are working on core protocol and will launch the testnet ASAP,” the BTG programmer reveals in a conversation on the team’s general chat Slack channel. “[Mining] profitability is determined by the price and mining difficulty, but the price is hard to predict,” he adds.
The developer also throws out a few opinions throughout the general chat channel about mining centralization. “ASIC leads to centralization — Evil ASIC manufacturers want to take up Bitcoin,” the BTG developer emphasizes. News.Bitcoin.com briefly spoke with Bitcoin Gold’s lead developer who calls himself “H4x3” over the team’s Slack channel about the project. “I can confirm the PoW will be changed to Equihash and the fork date is October 25,” explains the developer. We sent some questions to Jack Liao and H4x3 because the lead developer told us our questions were “too sensitive” to answer alone. The BTG team has not yet responded to our emailed questions.
Possible Reasons for a Very Unorganized and Confusing Fork Proposal
It’s likely that many bitcoin proponents are viewing the project as a joke or another method of “crypto-trolling.” There’s a lot of good reasons people believe its a prank because the project seems extremely unorganized for a hard fork slated for the end of October. Further, there is speculation from community members about the team’s intentions to change the bitcoin algorithm to conform with GPU miners. Jack Liao manufactures GPU miners that can mine the Zcash algorithm Equihash and speculators believe this is the primary reason to clone bitcoin and make it GPU compatible.
News.Bitcoin.com will be following the development of this story closely and will update this article if the BTG team responds to our questions.
What do you think about the proposed Bitcoin Gold hard fork allegedly scheduled for October 25? Do you think this project is trolling or a joke? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, and the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel.
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