Bittrex demanded Bitcoin Gold pay $265K or face removal

[vit05]

The threat of attack is very real for upstart cryptocurrency projects. Bitcoin Gold, a popular hard fork of Bitcoin, $BTC▲0.3% is set to be delisted from cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex.

The reason for the removal is that the currency has suffered a series of debilitating heists that netted thieves over $20 million in stolen funds.

Back in May, Bitcoin Gold was hijacked with rented computing power. After hackers took control of more than 51 percent of the overall hash power, more than 388,000 BTG (approx. $18 million at the time) was stolen directly from Bittrex. Hackers were able to use “double-spending,” a method of repeatedly tricking an exchange into transferring more coins than it should.

In doing so, almost $18 million in cryptocurrency was stolen directly from exchanges. It is uncertain just how much was taken from Bittrex, but Bitcoin Gold maintains that compensation of over 12,000 BTG ($265,000) was requested.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that by September 14, Bitcoin Gold will be completely removed from Bittrex.

In response, the Bitcoin Gold development team uploaded a lengthy statement, which told its side of the story:

Bittrex informed us that they make this decision because the BTG team would not “take responsibility for our chain,” and that taking responsibility meant paying Bittrex 12,372 BTG to cover the loss they incurred. They later informed us they would cover part of the loss from their own BTG reserves and requested we pay the remaining ~6,000 BTG, and that if we did not, we would be delisted.

This is proof that security incidents really do have a lasting effect on cryptocurrency projects. The dev team does defend itself by claiming the 51 percent attack that led the double-spending was not its fault. Instead, it blamed the Proof-of-Work consensus style on which Bitcoin Gold operates.

The Bitcoin Gold team is not responsible for security policy within private entities like Bitrex (sic); those who earn revenue running a private business must manage the related risks and are ultimately responsible for their own security.

Obviously, Bittrex does not feel the same way, but whether or not this will have an impact on the long-term survivability of Bitcoin Gold, isn’t yet clear. What is clear, though, is that market sentiment has turned.

Last year, when $3.3 million worth of Bitcoin Gold was stolen after users were tricked into downloading a fake wallet, it was ranked the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/09/03/bittrex-delists-bitcoin-gold/

Bitcoin gold is a bad project from the beginning. I hope it disappears soon as it offers nothing innovative or revolutionary.

[kiemnhieutien]

Bitcoin Gold uses Proof-of-Work consensus and I personally think Proof-of-Work consensus is not secure. Anyone or group control 51% of the total processing power can do a double-spend attack, they can erase transactions in the blockchain, it breaks the rule cannot change of blockchain.  Proof-of-stake  is better than Proof-of-Work.

[MirkoIta]

Bittrex is right in demanding compensation from the BTG team. Who should be in charge of the network security if not the dev team which decided to fork BTC for their personal gain?

[vlad230]

I'm curios why they kept Bitcoin Gold listed until now, they should have removed it immediately as the news got out.

As a user of exchanges, I would like to be protected from trading currencies that have been hijacked or are facing the risk to be hijacked. 

[Antelopez2]

It is right in demanding compensation from the BTG team, people who should be in charge of the network security if not the dev team which decided to fork BTC for their personal gain. As a user of exchanges, I would like to be protected from trading currencies that have been hacking or are facing the risk to be hacked.

[cryptosmith03]

In my opinion Bittrex is right way in deman recompense from the BTG players. It must be in charge of the networking secure. if not the other team decided to divide BTC for their personal advancement.

[SafeCamel95]

Maybe your statement is be true, but we should get better knowledge about any project before investing I believe. May be some project good or bad but have to be a good idea about those project. Hopping Bitcoin Gold will its position soon.

[MoneyGuardian]

Caution is the biggest issue in cryptocurrency so we have to be careful about various projects and investments all the time. I will not say anything about bitcoin gold sitution but we must have to carefull about our investment.

[samcrypto]

Bittrex is right in demanding compensation from the BTG team. Who should be in charge of the network security if not the dev team which decided to fork BTC for their personal gain?

Exactly, BTG Team is the one responsible for securing their system, so this is a good move by bitter. For me, its better not to ask for any payment just delist this coin and bittrex will still be good. Since the first day of this coin and people are doubting, and now its true this project is really not good.

[sidneycrypto6]

Although bitcoin gold itself has a problem. We hope to get the solution very quickly. We, all the investors are trying to save our investment and want to gain more profit. So there is need to solve the problem very soon.

[talkbitcoin]

Bittrex is right in demanding compensation from the BTG team. Who should be in charge of the network security if not the dev team which decided to fork BTC for their personal gain?

BTG is a shitcoin, there is no doubt about it. but there are hundreds of altcoins that are worse than BTG out there and many of them are actually listed on Bittrex exchange and they have also had the same security flaws in them. why didn't their team ask those coins for compensation?

besides everyone seems to have forgotten to take a look at conditions of the open source projects in their license called MIT license! the project is released as is, the team is not responsible for any losses. in fact it is the dumbest thing to "demand" anything from the team! somebody needs to send Bittrex a link to the license so that they can read it and not be a newbie anymore
https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

[ekechie]

The dev team does defend itself by claiming the 51 percent attack that led the double-spending was not its fault. Instead, it blamed the Proof-of-Work consensus style on which Bitcoin Gold operates.

Serious I am really surprised by the above statement by the team, how can a dev made such a statement? are they not suppose to find a consensus style that will make their network secured from such an attack? it's obvious that they don't have anything to offer, it's better they just leave the space.

[Bryrsyrog]

Bittrex is going to delist Bitcoin gold from its exchange. They are taking this decision due to the reason that the coin has suffered debilitating heists of worth $ 20 million.Bitcoin gold works on proof of work consensus and they said on their part that

[bitbabba]

I always think bittrex is bad exchange and this kind of behaviour making me right.

[BarnabyETH]

think bitterx is right as the bitcoin gold lacks security. Bitcoin gold uses proof of work system and this system is not good for security and it should use proof of stake. Moreover it is a big issue and it will hamper the reputation of the market as well.

[TOYOB BISWAS]

Since BTC gold has some security issues, Bitterx would be the right option for it. BTC gold mainly follows POW system and it is a poor one too on top of that. Moreover the reputation is at stake too.

[Psynthax]

Bitcoin Gold should be removed from not only Bittrex but also from all other exchanges. It is a shit fork like all the other forks in the market and moreover, this coin just got exposed and let the world of hackers know how vulnerable it is. The developer team should have thought of coding it in a better way rather than releasing such announcements.

Fork coin should not be existed, we have a bitcoin and it will be the only one and no more. As you can see a lot of people are saying the same thing like you. But it looks like bittrex wants more and more money. Is there a problem with the maintenance cost of bittrex exchange site? it has been going down to the medium tier exchange.