BTC - what splits/forks since 2017?

[BigEagleFromRavenRock]

So back around July of 2017 I moved some BTC into a paper wallet. (And a little more in August and October of 2017.) And it's been sitting there ever since. I'm now ready to move back to an exchange account, but I am wondering what else that wallet might have accumulated in the past few years. If I recall, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold both forked from BTC in 2017 and they both 'rewarded' air drop coins, right? Are there other air drops that my BTC might have accumulated while parked the past few years?

Two follow up questions....

Is there one exchange that might reward any and all air drops associated with that wallet? So I can just make one transfer and earn all the rewards? Or should I have to plan on multiple transactions?

If I don't even bother trying to deal with the air drops, what happens to those coins? For example, if I transfer the paper wallet to CoinBase, they won't add the air dropped coins to my balance because they didn't support a couple of those drops. So what happens to the coins? Is someone else who sees my transfer able to go back and clean those up? Just wondering.

(If I have used improper language or terminology, please forgive me. I know most chat rooms have the elitists that love to stomp on errors from the unclean. That's why I headed to the newbie room. Not looking for a fight - just some help.)

Thanks much!

[hosseinimr93]

So back around July of 2017 I moved some BTC into a paper wallet. (And a little more in August and October of 2017.) And it's been sitting there ever since. I'm now ready to move back to an exchange account, but I am wondering what else that wallet might have accumulated in the past few years. If I recall, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold both forked from BTC in 2017 and they both 'rewarded' air drop coins,

They are not airdropped coins. They are fork of Bitcoin.
In addition to Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, now you should have Bitcoin SV which is fork of Bitcoin Cash.

Is there one exchange that might reward any and all air drops associated with that wallet? So I can just make one transfer and earn all the rewards? Or should I have to plan on multiple transactions?

I don't think any exchange do that.

If I don't even bother trying to deal with the air drops, what happens to those coins? For example, if I transfer the paper wallet to CoinBase, they won't add the air dropped coins to my balance because they didn't support a couple of those drops. So what happens to the coins? Is someone else who sees my transfer able to go back and clean those up? Just wondering.

They won't be lost. They will remain in your wallet until you move them.

As you are talking about a paper wallet, you should have the private key of your address. That private key can be used for accessing all forked coins including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin gold, etc.
For example, you can install Electron Cash, enter your private key and access your Bitcoin Cash. Then you can easily move your coins to any address.

[Yogee]

Check this topic https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2434261.0
They offer a service for fork claiming but I cannot tell if they are still active. I cannot access their website.
Bitcoin forks up to April 2018 was also posted there.

[Csmiami]

You can check this thread to see many of the BTC forks over time. It's not complete, and I believe it hasn't been updated in some time, but the most important ones show there.

If you want to redeem your forked coins, you can use Loyce's service, or redeem them by yourself (note that Loyce only gets some of the forks).

If I don't even bother trying to deal with the air drops, what happens to those coins? For example, if I transfer the paper wallet to CoinBase, they won't add the air dropped coins to my balance because they didn't support a couple of those drops. So what happens to the coins? Is someone else who sees my transfer able to go back and clean those up? Just wondering.

If you don't move your airdropped coins from your wallet, they'll remain there forever (pretty much like BTC if you don't move it). About the exchange transfers; if you transfer the coins of the paper wallet to CoinBase, you'll be sending 1 coin. You decide which coin you want to send, and if you want to deposit all of them, you have to make individual deposits on each coin. They are altcoins, so think about them as BTC, ETH and DOGE, but with a shared address. You have to move each coin individually, as they are not related to the others. Don't worry about someone going back and cleaning your funds after a transfer, they'd either need to have your nmemonic seed or private keys (or both).

If CoinBase doesn't support a coin of those forks, you'll have to find another exchange that does in order to deposit them; as with the example above, you can't deposit DOGE in a BTC address because it's not the same coin

[pooya87]

(If I have used improper language or terminology, please forgive me. I know most chat rooms have the elitists that love to stomp on errors from the unclean. That's why I headed to the newbie room. Not looking for a fight - just some help.)

don't worry too much about it. but just so you know:
- split: is the wrong term since there was no split.
- fork: is technically correct but still doesn't describe the situation well. so i wouldn't use it.
- airdrop: is technically wrong but it describes it better.
the best term in my opinion is "copy coins" because it describes these types of coins well. these are literary copies of bitcoin (and rarely of another altcoin) where they create an exact copy of the bitcoin blockchain and near exact copy of its code.

while claiming these coins you must first move your bitcoins to remain safe. create a new paper wallet safely (offline on an air-gap computer) and send your bitcoins to that new key. then try claiming those altcoins. a simple way is using a multi-coin wallet that supports all these coins such as Coinomi but know that this particular wallet is not safe to use for anything else since it is closed source. you can use it to claim these altcoins and then send them to exchanges that have them to sell and move the bitcoins to your new paper wallet or transfer the fiat to your bank account,...

P.S. here is two sites that have lists of these copy coins: http://forks.net/list/Bitcoin https://forkdrop.io/

[coronga]

There is a lot of btc forks since 2017, take a look on this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2749969.0
Not a complete list but is already a lot