[2017-11-30] Get ready for a wave of Bitcoin forks

[jekjekman]

On August 1, a dissident faction of the Bitcoin community created a new payment network called Bitcoin Cash. There are lots of Bitcoin-derived spinoff currencies, of course, but this was unusual because it branched off from the existing Bitcoin blockchain. The result was the cryptocurrency equivalent of a stock split: everyone who owned one bitcoin before the split suddenly owned a "cash" bitcoin after the split.

Today, the value of Bitcoin Cash in circulation is about $20 billion. That makes it the third most valuable currency, after only the original Bitcoin and Ethereum. And this appears to be newly created wealth. The value of vanilla bitcoins didn't fall significantly on the day of the split, and it has since zoomed upwards so that the value of all conventional bitcoins is now around $150 billion.

With that kind of money on the table, it was inevitable that others would try the same trick. In early November, another group of Bitcoin developers publicly launched the Bitcoin Gold network. This version of Bitcoin swaps out Bitcoin's current mining process—where people compete for bitcoins by computing SHA-256 hashes using custom-designed mining hardware—with a memory-hard algorithm that, designers hope, will make it resistant to acceleration by custom hardware. The creators say they want to re-democratize Bitcoin mining, once again making it possible for anyone to earn Bitcoin Gold with their home PCs.

Like Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold split off from the main Bitcoin blockchain, so everyone who owned a normal bitcoin before the fork got a "gold" bitcoin after the fork. But the Bitcoin Gold team added a controversial twist: after the fork, it rapidly mined approximately 100,000 bitcoins for itself before opening the network to the public.

Bitcoin Gold is now worth around $270 per bitcoin, so the team essentially created a $27 million endowment for itself, which it says will support development of the Bitcoin Gold project. The Bitcoin Gold network as a whole is worth $4.5 billion, making it the sixth most valuable cryptocurrency after Ripple and Dash—and slightly ahead of the earliest successful Bitcoin fork, Litecoin.

The question now is who is going to try this trick next. The answer is: a lot of people. In recent weeks, a bunch of different people have announced plans to create new currencies. There's Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Platinum, Bitcoin Diamond, Bitcoin Uranium, Bitcoin Cash Plus, and Super Bitcoin.

READ MORE


I doubt that people will still believe those forked coins after what happened in the previous forks. Forked coins are just really based on their fans and has no chance of replacing bitcoin.

[aso118]

It doesn't matter how many forks there are. Most people would just ignore these forks and their coins will remain in cold storage. Some of them will try to exchange these coins for bitcoins. Of course, there is some leakage of privacy when you do so. I consider them as unsolicited gifts which I don't open at all.

[greeklogos]

I am altcoin investor and I usually have no bitcoins on my amount, so all this forks and free coins which comes with it do not interesting to me, especially after this tend that they become as something usual. This fact tells me that it will appear more new shit coins which will be used for new market's manipulations by speculators.

[Xavofat]

It doesn't matter how many forks there are. Most people would just ignore these forks and their coins will remain in cold storage.

That could actually be a very good thing for these forks. 

If all competent users decide to keep their coins safe and not bother screwing with them to "claim" the latest money-grabbing DevCoin (which is pretty much what all of these new forks are going to be), then all you have left is the kind of rabid speculators that make "Bitcoin Gold" (infected with malware for two days; listed a scam site; huge "post-mine" etc) worth such a stupid amount.

All these forks need for the developers to get rich is to have a large premine/"post-mine" for the developers, a concept which somehow leaps on the bandwagon of previous forks, and some exchanges to list them.

Somehow though, many of them can't even pull together a functioning codebase before they spout out this bullshit.

[iamTom123]

I am altcoin investor and I usually have no bitcoins on my amount, so all this forks and free coins which comes with it do not interesting to me, especially after this tend that they become as something usual. This fact tells me that it will appear more new shit coins which will be used for new market's manipulations by speculators.

You should have some Bitcoin too so that you can participate in the airdrops of these alts created by many Bitcoin hard forks. I am thinking that if these series of hard forks will continue we can end up with so many altcoins dominating the scene and making it to the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of value. Well, either we look at this as an expression of greed or just being entrepreneurial as they are seeing a good opportunity worth of exploiting. Who does not want to have some money out of thin air? The question that has to be answered is this: Will these altcoins created by Bitcoin hard forks affect the very viability and future of Bitcoin or will the market just ignored them?

[Guardian.P]

I do not see anything wrong with forks. No matter how many of them were there. When that comes their time, maybe you should not merge them in the first days, but hold in the long. always happy with this freebie)