Cryptocurrency enthusiasts around the world, paid rapt attention to news of another hardfork of bitcoin, called Bitcoin Gold. An earlier fork this year, lead to the creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Why did the fork occour ?
Bitcoin Gold backers want to reduce the influence big time miners have, by making it easier for smaller equipment to mine bitcoin. Many bitcoin miners use large processors, and this makes mining fees quite expensive
Who gained and who lost out ?
Holders of bitcoin got the same proportionate amount of bitcoin gold, essentially free money. Many of them opted to cash out. Bitcoin Gold hit a high of $525 per coin, before dropping to $125. Not all cryptocurrrency exchanges, credited their clients.
News of the fork also pushed bitcoin prices higher and led to a crash in alt coins. An alt coin is any cryptocurrency that uses bitcoin’s code, but has an alternative market or use. Bitcoin and alt coins have an alternate relationship, so a rise in the price of bitcoin, leads to a fall in alt coin prices and vice versa.
Why this fork isn’t a big deal
Unlike Bitcoin Cash that had a large number of backers, supporters of Bitcoin Gold largely lack influence, with a development team of only 5. The arguments given for the fork, were also not compelling. Increased adoption of bitcoin for everyday use, would increase investments in its mining, which would drive down prices as mining capacity increases.
This wont be the last of these forks, as several parties, will break off in the future.
