Bitcoin Gold is one of the main cryptocurrency of Bitcoin forks. Like the original Bitcoin, the number of payment units is limited to 21 million. The main change concerns the algorithm that should attract miners with powerful video cards to the system. Therefore, instead of the algorithm SHA-256 is used modified algorithm Equihash, version Equihash-BTG (Zhash). This algorithm provides reliable protection against miners on ASIC, as it has high requirements for RAM. As well as miners of original Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold miners are combined into pools to collectively compute the block signature. The Bitcoin Gold project is open source, just like the original Bitcoin. The Bitcoin software code, taken as a basis, has been refined and improved in many respects. The time to calculate the block signature is 10 minutes, just like in the original Bitcoin. However, the correction of difficulty at the Bitcoin Gold cryptocurrency occurs after each block. Bitcoin Gold supports SegWit technology, which allows to take up less space in the block and reduces the amount of space required for blockchain storage. Both Bitcoin Gold and the original Bitcoin halve the block's reward amount every 4 years. This award reduction is built into the algorithms of both cryptocurrencies. It leads to a reduction in the entry of new coins to the market and, in the future, to an increase in the exchange rate.
How did users get the first Bitcoin Gold coins?
The developers of Bitcoin Gold distributed coins of their cryptocurrency to all owners of the original Bitcoin in a ratio of 1 to 1. Thus, each owner of Bitcoin received a cryptocurrency gift. The distribution of Bitcoin Gold to the users has not officially stopped and any Bitcoin user can get his BTG coins. Since you need to enter a private key to your Bitcoin, you must only use software from the official website.
How does the Bitcoin Gold node system work?
Bitcoin Gold has inherited a proven and protected cryptocurrencies nodes system from the original Bitcoin. The wallet program becomes a lightweight Bitcoin Gold node. The transaction is transferred between light BTG nodes until it reaches the full Bitcoin Gold node. The light BTG nodes only check the headers of blocks, while the full BTG nodes write to the blockchain. There are two ways to install the software of a full Bitcoin Gold node. It can be downloaded as source code or you can download the pre-compiled version and then install it on your computer. You will need to wait for the complete blockchain BTG node to synchronize, which takes over 200 gigabytes. The Bitcoin Gold system does not provide any rewards for owners of full cryptocurrencies nodes.
Which payment units are used in the Bitcoin Gold network?
The Bitcoin Gold cryptocurrency, which has the designation BTG, circulates between the crypto nodes of the network. Like the original Bitcoin, 1 BTG is divided into 100 million smallest parts. There are both official software wallets and third-party wallets which can store BTG. A total of 11 wallets, including the renowned Trezor and Ledger, already support BTG. Commissions for payments to BTG rarely exceed the equivalent of $0.01.
Further development of Bitcoin Gold
Bitcoin Gold will soon begin to support Lightning Network technology, which will allow us to perform transactions between crypto nodes with minimal commissions and almost instantly. When two Lightning Network crypto nodes are going to contact, a channel for them is opened that is hosted on a side chain. This saves computational resources of the main Bitcoin Gold blockchain. It is planned to add schnorr signatures, which will allow us to sign several blocks in a blockchain once and save bandwidth between Bitcoin Gold nodes. Support for second-level solutions such as Plasma will be added to add a programming language for smart contracts and side chains.
