Bitcoin GoldBTG
$ 0.49981Latest price
-3.66 %Change 24H
$ 9.77 MMarket cap
BTG
$ 0.49981
$ 9.77 M
-3.66 %
Minable cryptocurrency
Proof-of-Work
The main goal of Bitcoin Gold is to enable the ordinary users to mine the currency as we saw in the early stages of the history of bitcoin. In the olden days, you could mine bitcoin literally at home. The key claim of this crypto is “Let’s make bitcoin decentralised again”. For mining Bitcoin Gold uses the traditional GPU - graphics card (like the one you have on your PC) to live up to the bitcoin founder’s idea of keeping this crypto decentralised and fully in the hands of its users.
The key person behind this crypto is Jack Liao, the founder of Hong Kong based mining company - Lightning ASIC network. In various discussions you can see loads of posts criticising Jack for building his business mostly on expensive ASIC’s chips, which contradicts the goal of the BTG launched in collaboration with an anonymous developer to return power to the investor by making mining the Bitcoin Gold possible via a cheap GPU chip. On the other hand, you can hear voices claiming that this is just a smart business move and that Liao’s plan is to get this type of cryptocurrency business under control.
Another person, playing a key role in Bitcoin Gold, is a chief developer nicknamed h4x3rotab. Other members on the team are: Robert Kuhne (strategy), Alejandro Regojo (organisation), Martin Kuvandzhiev (consulting/development), Franco Niebles (UX).
A man who participated in the funding of this altcoin is known as Wubi, the owner of China’s crypto portal Jinse.com.
Bitcoin Gold is supported by GPU chips using equihash as an algorithm. BTG’s aim is to further decentralise the business, because with the current bitcoin blockchain the mining is driven by large pools, all having to use ASICs to survive in the harsh competitive environment.
Bitcoin Gold declares that if the mining with equihash becomes more and more centralised (e.g. after developing some machine that is able to speed up the mining process with this algorithm to bring it to a more centralised option) then they would not hesitate to modify the algorithm again.
The hard fork of the main blockchain took place on 24 October 2017 at 6:00 UTC.
Most of the criticism was over mining coins in the aftermath of the crypto launch, approved by the key developers. There is no hard data available about this transaction, but estimates say that it was at least 1 % of the total.
You can download the roadmap (regarded as the currency’s whitepaper) here:
Right now, Bitcoin Gold enjoys minimal support in terms of real usage or payments. Although the hard fork took place on 25 October 2017, the new blockchain was officially launched as late as 12 November 2017 and surrounded by many...
On 12 November 2017, BTG closed the day at 470 USD. However, soon after the blockchain’s introduction, it continued to fall until 20 November 2017 to reaching its low at 120 USD. In the recent 10 days the trend line has been showing a moderate decline oscillating around 300 USD per BTG. Yet, the overall market capitalisation of the crypto has declined, the same as the exchange rate. The current market capitalisation stands at around 5 billion USD.
Complicated by technical errors, the introduction of the new blockchain aroused a lot of criticism among the users. On the very first day, the mining didn’t work. People could use 100 000 pre-mined coins. New miners of the Supernova pool complained on Twitter about the small reward they received for a block, given that the coin was a new kid on the block. Others, from pool.gold warned that either a Trojan horse or a giant player with a capacity far exceeding the rest might be in the network. This would suggest that the decentralisation may not be as realistic as proclaimed or indicate some other problems.
The technical problems impacted the end users and investors as well. Especially those downloading the Bitcoin Gold wallet installer from the official GitHub, from 21st to 26th November 2017. It’s published in the official statement that at the time of downloading the installer the system was malware-infected: https://bitcoingold.org/critical-warning-nov-26/
According to Forbes, the Bitcoin Gold fork left the investors disillusioned and it lead to minimal demand for investments in the wake of its launch. The above problems accompanying the cryptocurrencies since the early stages, culminated in an unconvincing launch of the blockchain and some later attacks against the miners, end users and wallet holders.
The primary mission of bitcoin gold is to decentralise the entire bitcoin blockchain to restore trust in bitcoin as a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin gold aspires to become a dignified modification of bitcoin, ready for future development and network scalability.
Yet, still the question remains over whether the flaws and warning signals surrounding the project, since the very beginning, are not a big exclamation mark for those who consider investing in this altcoin.
The main official document showing the essential thesis regarding the currency can be found at the below address:
The mining of Bitcoin Gold, as mentioned above, is carried out by means of GPU’s using equihash as an algorithm. Compared with bitcoin and bitcoin Cash, both using ASICs machines for mining, this is a dramatic change aimed again at decentralising bitcoin. The thing is that not even the mining community has fallen in love with this new altcoin.
One of the first to have voiced criticism was the founder of the first bitcoin pool, a prominent influencer, Marek Palatinus (slush pool) questioning on twitter the actual reason for the decentralization of bitcoin gold's algorithm, given that there are only two companies that produce relevant GPU chips. (AMD, NVidia).
If you decide to mine (in spite of the outlined shortcomings) take one of the following pools:
The two aforementioned official pools are among the first to have gained support.
and some more that followed...
A next one (updated) is available at the official website here.
To be able to mine, you will need powerful GPU chips made by NVidia/AMD. What might be of your interest is the fact that the prices of shares of the two companies have dramatically grown. This is likely due to the increasing demand for GPU cards to be used for mining cryptocurrencies in 2018 and beyond.
Right now, the most frequently mentioned cryptocurrencies in association with GPU chips are: ethereum, monero, zcash, hush, komodo and some more. The same setup allows mining of BTG.
Along with hardware, you will need some software. Popular software packages include:
Depending on the hardware, first of all you will have to decide how big your rig should be and then buy the adequate number of cards. Most frequent rigs are of 6, 8, 12, 13, 19. The most popular combination used by beginners is an 8 GPU mining rig.
Hardware suitable for BTG mining is identical with that needed for the mining of ZCash and Zclassic, ZenCash, Hush, Komoda. You can test all the coins to choose the one that offers the biggest yield.
The yield or profit largely depends on the size of a rig, on the applied hardware, the exchange rate of the altcoin, and current electricity costs. Moreover, you must consider the difficulty rate of the network increasing with each mined block.
In the light of the above, you must be flexible in responding to all aspects leading to profit and adjust your mining strategy accordingly.
The major available application is the client offered at the official website: Bitcoin Gold Core (infected by malware from day 21 to day 26).
In addition, the currency is being supported by the two most popular hardware crypto-wallets: Ledger and Trezor.
Of the software mobile wallets, Bitcoin Gold is supported by: Coinomi, Bitpie, Freewalet and Guarda. Of the web wallets it is BTGwallet.online.
Of all the wallets mentioned above, I’d like to highlight one called Coinomi wallet, perhaps the most popular for transactions with Bitcoin Gold mentioned in most of reviews. This wallet is mentioned in relations with mining BTC during the splitting of the blockchain. The process is as follows: Use a seed word from your BTC wallet to restore your wallet into Coinomi. After uploading your wallet in Coinomi, you can ask for Bitcoin Gold you were privileged to receive on the fork day.
Many users keep asking about where you can sell BTG for more easily convertible cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. One of the most comfortable is the Bluetrade cryptocurrency exchange or some other exchanges allowing BTG trading.
In the beginning, the bitcoin gold fork profited from its repute and succeeded in winning prominent partners from among the exchanges. The website therefore features prominent professionals from the business. On the other hand, some of the players (such as CoinDesk) have strictly denied to cooperate on such a project due to security risks and the incapability of BTG developers to offer the code to public control.
BTG is currently supported by the following cryptocurrency exchanges:
⚠️ Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency investment carries risk. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.
