Review on Bitcoin Gold by Julio Varela
Bitcoin Gold
The world's first cryptocurrency was Bitcoin, introduced on October 31, 2008, and mined for the first time in early 2009. Since then, BTC has managed to retain the crown as the world's leading cryptocurrency. However, this does not mean that you have kept your community together. Of the divisions of the crypto community is the emergence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Gold.
Bitcoin Gold's main achievement within the world of cryptocurrencies lies in its form of mining. Currently, to participate in the mining of Bitcoin it takes a great power of processing that only specialized equipment provides. They are the Integrated Circuits for Specific Applications or ASIC for its acronym in English.
This equipment is quite expensive, so only those who have the purchasing power to buy it will be able to participate in BTC mining. What, since in the Blockchain the power of processing within the network. It means that it is these groups that have the most leverage to decide the future of Bitcoin.
On the contrary, to be able to mine Bitcoin Gold you don't need specialized equipment. Well, your mining is based on GPU technology instead of ASIC, which means that anyone can mine Bitcoin Gold. It only requires a basic computer equipment in which to start running the node, and it will be participating in the network.
Pros
- It is accepted in a good list of wallets
- lower mining requirement
- It is smoothed with the big Bitcoin
Cons
- Bitcoin Gold's great advantage is also its greatest weakness. Since a lower mining requirement means less computing power put into your Blockchain. Or what is the same, minors defenses against attacks against the blockchain. A situation that is even worse when the currency is little known, and therefore has few miners. Therefore, in May 2018 Bitcon Gold suffered an attack by an unknown hacker who managed to overcome 51% of the network's hashing power. I mean, a hacker with the power to enough processing to have most of the network's decision-making power. As a result, 388,000 BTGs were stolen from the network, worth approximately $ 18 million. Thus clearly showing one of the biggest limitations of Bitcoin Gold when comparing with its mother chain.
