Bitcoin Gold (BTG): What is it?

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Bitcoin Gold is a cryptocurrency that split off from Bitcoin in 2017. The original idea behind Bitcoin was to create a decentralized digital currency. A currency independent of any single authority and managed by a network of peers who keep the blockchain secure. In this cryptotaxcalculator article, we’ll take a look at what Bitcoin Gold is and how it works Read on to learn more!

The proof-of-work system that verifies Bitcoin transactions and enable miners to earn rewards by generating new blocks, however, needs expensive hardware like Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) – making it unfeasible for the average person to mine Bitcoins on their own.

If the number of miners (or peers) on the Blockchain network continues to decline, the system could become centralised, with only a few people controlling the majority of Bitcoin. Currently, ASICs are very expensive and ordinarily individuals cannot afford them; as time goes on fewer will be able to mine for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Gold was created as a hard fork, a hard fork occurs when a new digital currency is developed on an independent blockchain- this usually happens to move away from certain aspects of the original crypto that are considered unfavourable. The community behind Bitcoin Gold wanted to move away from the processor-intensive protocol used to mine Bitcoin to allow more people per mining operation and restore decentralisation in the process.

Bitcoin Gold’s use of the Equihash algorithm, which can be solved using a standard Graphics Processing Unit available in regular computers and smartphones, makes it possible for anyone who owns a computer to become a miner if they wish. As Bitcoin Gold is mined with GPUs, the network has the potential to have more miners than Bitcoin, making it decentralized.

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