Bitcoin Forum

This thread I have created primarily for the purpose of having a proper reference to flag BTG for their various schemes. Please note that they already have a flag type-2 warning due to this:

It is still very advisable to create a flag type-1 if there is a reason to do so.

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The first two reasons are based on the rating left by Michail1 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=31539) for which they have received a negative from him in 2017:
1)

2)
Additional reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7drv3v/scam_warningbitcoin_gold_wallet_stole_all_my/.

3) Hidden premine as "bonus to developers" (clarified as this later).
Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-gold-clarifies-premine-endowment.

4) 51% attacked - succeeded and therefore delisted from Bittrex. This currency is easy to attack this way (i.e. financially easy).
Reference: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/09/03/bittrex-delists-bitcoin-gold/.
Reference 2 (according for which you need to spend $500 to attack it for 1 hour): https://www.crypto51.app/

5) Modified hashing algorithm which is advertised as "Equihash-BTG". AFAIK this customization has not been peer-reviewed by cryptographers albeit quite dangerous, problem #4 is of more importance.
Reference: https://bitcoingold.org/equihash-btg/.

If others have more, I can add it but this is already sufficient.

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Conclusion: Outright scam coin created solely to enrich the developers and poses a enormous risk to anybody who may consider buying it (Bittrex has already lost a lot of money due to this).

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Flag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1408.

Thanks, Lauda, for taking action to warn the general public against what is well-known in the technical community as a scam coin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite).

The self-styled “Bitcoin Gold” was never anything but a chimæric combination of bad imitations:  A bad copy of Bitcoin, plus a bad copy of Zcash’s mining algorithm—with a free-money premine for the devs.  In practice, it has been a security nightmare due to its real-world, in-the-wild vulnerability to 51% attacks, which have resulted in massive thefts.  AVOID.  The only people who can reasonably expect to not lose money in BTG are the BTG devs, and blackhats with some nice hashpower.

I'm not disagreeing with your analysis - everything you have listed is scammy.


But a LOT of coins were attacked with 51% double spend attacks that led to losses.

Very few coins are immune from 51% attacks and a lot of the coins that were attacked kept it quiet.

A large majority of POW alt coins are guilty of the same.

Better late than never, thank you for starting this thread. It needed to be highlighted and people who might not be aware of the facts can at least learn about them.


You have a point there about 51% double spend attacks but how many of those coins had a developers hiding their endowment policy to allegedly help the ecosystem but at the same time took some of it and handed it to the developers?

In my opinion the fact they sat on much of the information for a long time should not be dismissed, they should be held to account for that. I know some of the issues go back a few years but they should not be allowed to put it in the past and simply carry on as business as usual.

This is correct, but is also the reason why I have used this as 1 reason along with a couple others to show just how risky it is. There are many coins of similar nature, thread TBA.

Thanks. I think more thread are coming in this style as long as I find the time.